Re: [UUPoly-L] "Deflowering" (was RE: enough already)

["Catherine Deville" <catdeville@cox.net>]

In a message dated 9/30/2008 11:38:28 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
catdeville@cox.net writes:

And  *that's* why female virginity is important in this (and many  other,
patriarchal, cultures), and it's also why only women can be  "deflowered".
Because a man cannot be "despoiled" by sexual intercourse.  

And Richard Keenan responded: 
<<"Despoiling" suggests that sex activity itself is ruinous and evil. >>

Not necessarily.  In the context in which I'm using it, a woman who had been
"deflowered" by someone who was not her husband was considered "despoiled"
because her value as breeding chattel had been compromised.  Men could not
be "despoiled" because they were not breeding chattel, and as part of this
cultural standard, it therefore did not matter if men had affairs, only if
women had affairs.  Indeed, under the cultural double standard which
existed, men were often *expected* to have affairs, and those affairs, and
even the "bastards" born of those affairs were of little consequence. 

Much of this thinking still prevails in Anglo culture, and in much of
western civilization... which is why it is assumed that men are "polygamous"
while women are "monogamous".  It is assumed that this is their "nature"
because it was what society required. 

I didn't create the language, nor the cultural mindset.  I just recognize
how it evolved. 

NT, 
Cat