A Natural History of Love (42-90)

Summary

As Rome grew larger in every aspect, land, variety, and the imagination of it's populace, Romans "perfected the lisure time" (42). Now, the Roman women were able to have more freedom, and with it came more oppurtunities along with thir flexible morals. The women of the first class usually worried more about their looks. Stuff like what jewlerygoes with what, and thier make-up. But to th Romans , to love someone wasn't a good enough reasonto get married, but they did know it's power and what it means. Then we get to the Middle Ages, thasts when France changed. The book said that throughout history women were expected to be "clean".They were judged on how clean their house was, and they were expected to be "sexually clean", meaning keeping thier virginity. We than start talking about knights and how it was difficult for them to be spiritual when their main focus was to kill. A Knight had to keep up with the Chilalry's code, which was to be courteous and kind when they were to deal with the other people. When they would fight, the intention was to hurt the other person, and alot of people were injured. You had to be strong, and if you showed weakeness, you was considered a sissy. They were liers, murderes, and engaged in alot of tournaments. If a Knight was killed during a tournament, the church called it a "suicide", meaning they went straight to hell. In those times, christianity tradition preached that too much love dangerous. Husbands were abl to kiss, carss, and fondle her, but he couldn't enjoy it. And any men who felt erotic passion for his wife was commiting adultry. They were only allowed to live together as business partners. They were only suppose to feel affection for eachother, get amiably and just happened to have children. The idea of an all-out love wasn't even thinkable. Now we get into the Books of Love. Their idea about love was rare, like books, were they can only find it in libraries. It talks abut how love is important and how even God gav the orders that we should love one another. It comes natural. Alot of people at that time turned to celibacy to keep themselves from lust, but something happened that changed their idea that erotic love was wrong and immoral. When William TX came back from the crusades, he began to write love songs, and about yearning, we now know these as the first troubadour love songs. It talked about how the soul is "ever-seeking" to find it's other half. Then we talk about modern love. The book started talking about the idea of a femme fatal. This is when the women gave men pain and a sense of guilt. The comes Modern Love. It says that the way we are now came from choice, privacy, and books. It started talking about how now women and men wanted to live out of their parent's house, alone, together. How people started to give rooms different functions. For example, the bedroom, which is now made for couples to do what they have to do in privacy without anyone knowing. Books came into the mix when lovers started talking about authors.

Quote

"We treasure love. It quenches, vexes, guides, and murders us. It seeps into th mortar of all our days. It feed our passions, it fills our fantasies, it inspires our art" (Akerman 90).

Reaction

I agree with the quote above. Basically it's saying that love makes us full. Love can help us, or it can kill us. So far the book is ok, but sometimes I think that the history background was a little too long.

A Natural History of Love (17-42)

Summary

Now we are getting into Greece. Under the title of the section, there's a subtitle saying "The world of the Citizen Kingdom". We start talking about Athens. It stated that their constitution was like ours, they had a democracy. The life of the men is so much different than that of the women in Athens. The wife never dined with her husband, and if they had a male visitor, the women was to get out of there. And those women who were apart of the men gatherings, they were looked on as prostitutes. Teenage girls were to marry young, but to an older men. Teenage boys were off limits, and sometimes the men were well into their 30's. They couple married then they fell in love. Love didn't have to do anything with getting married, it was a lot about being able to produce children. The women in Greece were very cherished, but they had a lower part in the community then that of the man. The book talks about a women named Artemis, she was beautiful, "excluded sensuality energy" and many women adored and followed her, even till their wedding day. Then we get into men loving men in Greece. The relationships happened between older men and younger boys. Aristophanes described a boy in "Clouds" to be modest and honest and beautiful. Plato has Socrates and his friends discuss these relationships at the dinner table. The family was never a good one, women had to live in the shadows and hide their feelings, while men can live openly. After Greece we start talking about Rome. And under this title, there's the subtitle "The Nightmare of Girls". Rome was a place that when a girl was born they often abandoned them and left. Most mother's would have to literally try to find away that they can save their babies. Then it tells us a story about Dido and Aeneas. Aeneas was a sailor who got lost at sea and had to go to land where he finds the queen Dido. She has lost her husband but it seemed that Aeneas had come at the right time, because they fall in love. One day they went hunting, and there, they made love. To Aeneas this really didn't mean anything, but to Dido and the Romans, this meant marriage. After a time of bliss, the Gods come to tell Aeneas that he has to go back and find his lost land Italy. Aeneas, heartbroken, doesn't tell Dido and leaves without telling her anything. When the news finally gets to Dido, she is so heartbroken that she decides to kill herself with Aeneas' sword hoping that he will see her funeral from sea. Later in the story, Aeneas gets a chance to the underworld and there he sees the ghost of Dido. He begs for forgiveness but she doesn't forgive and runs away, still hating him for what he did. In Rome the father chooses who the girl marries at age 14, that's why she didn't need much education and Romans never really cared much for education. It was law, though, that a women must agree with the marriage, but she couldn't reject her father's wishes, so she had to marry. When you had children it would mean that you are really married. At the wedding, gifts were given and the bride wears the ring, on the same finger as today. There's a story behind why that specific finger was chosen. It was said that there was a very delicate nerve that starts from the tip of that finger and travels to the heart. It was only fitting that they put the honorable ring on that finger, that has that "loose connection with the heart". It was said that when ever a man and a woman touched hands, they touched hearts. The wedding night was almost like the women got raped because even though she didn't want to do, they had relations. Once again, the marriage was to produce children and nothing else. The Romans were very sexual people, but they would only have sex at night, but there people who did it, secretly, at daytime. Then we start talking about Ovid and his love poems. Ovid had many lovers, which was considered wrong. Romans, at that time, had a lot of rules. Like if you were divorced you have to get remarried in 6 months, and if your spouse died, you had to get remarried in two years. It was no such time to publish a book on infidelity, but Ovid choose this time. It got him into a lot of trouble. Augustus, the ruler at that time, had every right to banish him. People saw him as somebody who only cared for sexual conquest. Just like Shakespeare, Ovid promises his girlfriends that they would be immortal through his love poems. Although at that time Augustus banned "The Art of Love", it has still made it through the years as a "brilliantly insightful meditation on love, vanity, and temptation".

Quote

"The man was said to receive 'the hands of his bride, and the ring symbolized that with her hand sh gave her innermost self. Every time they touched hands, they touched hearts" (Ackerman 36).

Reaction

These pages of the book made alot of sense. My knowledge grew on the Romans, I had knew that they were all about sexuality. The quote above makes you think alot about the union of a husband and wife. Even though in those times that marriage wasn't about love, the words written above describes how strong a love between two people can be.

A Natural History of Love (13-17)

Summary
So far we have talked about Cleopatra and love poems in Egypt. Now it breaks love into 6 key themes. The first theme is "Love's alchemy, or the power to transform". This theme is all about how we have problems with who we are and by loving our partners, or our significant half, we learn to love ourselves. The second theme is "Idealizing the beloved in images drawn from nature". This theme talks about why we refer to someone as a gem, or a flower, or the moon, but we don't say skyscraper. It's about using nature to express our love for each other. The 3rd theme is " Love is enslavement". It's about how when were inlove we give part of our freedom away, and how were more willing to give it someone we love, then the government or a dictator. The 4th theme is "Being Disabled", meaning how we can't keep our mind of the person and how we never seem to be focusing on anything but them. It talks about how love becomes a sickness that we all want. The 5th theme is " A secret kept from one's parents" this theme is all about us not being able to express love to the person or people we love but were willing to express it to strangers. We keep it a secret from the person we really love. The 6th theme is "Redoubling of the senses", and this is all about a lover's touch. These are the 6 themes of love. Then it starts talking about incest marriage and how some thought it to be normal, while other thought it to be wrong and condoned in the bible. We long for the desire to love, and to be loved.

Quote
"...every now and then, people go haywire, lose their ability to think clearly, have stomachaches, can't sleep properly, and spend hours daydreaming. Such a state has all the earmarks of disease and, as the Egyptian love poems remind us, people have always described love as sickness" (Ackerman 13).

Reaction
I agree with alot of what the 6 themes of love is. When people are in love they do feel like they can't do nothing, and everytime they try it's like their minds walks and we start thinking about the one we love. I also agree with the fact that were more willing to give away all our freedom to the one we love, rather than the government. The quote above, once again, states how when your in love your always daydreaming. It also describes love as being a sickness.

A Natural History of Love (3-12)

Summary
Love. Hard to define because love had many different meanings. There's a love between a girlfriend and her boyfriend, parental love, and love for material things. Love can bring the most sane people almost to the brink of insanity, it can make the toughest people become soft. Love can make the strongest people, become weak. It's a word that means so much, but is often used lightly. This book "A Natural History of Love" gives you the inside and out about love. It not only takes us to modern times but first it takes us, way back. I'm talking about Egypt, Greece, Rome, and even the middle ages. But first we take a trip to Egypt and learn about how they used and thought about love. First it talks about Cleopatra and her romance. Cleopatra was born in 69 B.C and was mainly Greek. she had everyman she wanted, and every men wanted her, they couldn't help it. One thing I really found interesting was that Cleopatra was married to Mark Anthony, and they had kids together. The book talks about their love and how she and Caesar had a history as well. Cleopatra's life was filled with everything she wanted, she was elegant, and wore the things. She was pretty pretty, it was the things she wore, the way she carried herself that made men follow her when she entered a room. Everyone thought that she was the best, but she had a lot of bad history. For instance, she killed her siblings in order to become queen, but Egyptians didn't seem to write about that kind of stuff. Then, the book talked about what Egyptians thought about love, and their idea can seem to be a bit sexual today. Egyptians expressed their love in many ways, and the most common was in music, dances, and poems. More frequently it was in love poems. Their poems are amazing and beautiful!

Quote
"Keeping our failings a secret, we assume no one on earth is as neurotic, no one as uniquely flawed. The rampantly beautiful person we are attracted to couldn't possibly be as frail. He is a contagion of virtues. Loving him, we sing his praises, highlighting all his good points. We redefine him to himself. Through love on learns to feel lovable" (Akerman 12).

Reaction
So far I found this book to be very very interesting. The whole definition of love keeps me thinking. I like the fact how the book talks about all the different love countries and romance time periods. The quote above is a way we feel when we love someone. It was talking about how were all imperfect and sometimes we find that the person we love have no flaws and that were the ones who have to work on things. The quote is saying that when we love someone we can't seem to find things that they need to work on, and that by loving them, by being in love, we learn to love ourselves and they learn to love us.