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From: ray@rochester.UUCP (Ray Frank)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: "Traditional Values"
Message-ID: <12133@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 17:01:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: rocheste.12133
Posted: Mon Oct  7 17:01:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Oct-85 06:27:55 EDT
References: <274@fear.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 37

> People who lament the decline in the institution of marriage tend to
> overlook a few of the less savory reasons why marriages lasted so
> long in the past.
> 
> In days gone by, no matter how viciously a husband beat his wife, and
> no matter how often he molested his children, the marriage would stay
> together. Wives and children had no legal rights, and there were no
> support groups; women would be told to endure it, and the children
> would not be believed.
> 
> Since the crimes weren't reported, as far as the record can tell, all
> of these wife-beating child molesters of bygone days had *perfect*
> marriages! The men were often considered to be pillars of the
> community, examples to the young, etc. etc. ad nauseam.
> 
> These days, of course, the women are less well-behaved -- why, they
> complain even when no bones are broken! Lordy! Worse yet, the
> children *tell*!
> 
> So the real difference between then and now is twofold -- women and
> children have rights now, and the level of hypocrisy about marriage
> has subsided from its Victorian level.
> 
> Back to the thrilling days of yesteryear? No thanks.
> -- 
> 
> 		Robert Plamondon
> 		{turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert

People were not perfect then just as they are not perfect now. 
You have not proof of the degree to which child molesting and wife terrorizing
took place in the past.  If you assume that it was just as bad back then as it
is now but appeared not to be for lack of reporting it then on that premise we
can make any asumption we want about the behavior patterns of a past age.
For example we can assume that there were 2,000,000 abortions per year every
year from as far back as you want to go, but due to lack of reporting it, we
were unaware of the degree to which this activity took place.