Tea at Trianon: The Degradation of Society

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, August 23, 2014

The Degradation of Society

From Freedom Outpost:

Societal attitudes about fertility, contraception, abortion, and marriage driven by the "sexual revolution" made it acceptable and legal to use abortion as a contraceptive, while men evaded the responsibility of marrying the women they've impregnated.

More than half of non-marital births are of couples who live in a cohabiting relationship. The shame of producing offspring out of wedlock disappeared when churches started celebrating pregnant teens on Mother's Day and the federal government became the Daddy and gave generous welfare and medical care to single mothers. According to Solomon, "Women ages 20-24 currently have the largest share of non-marital births." (CRS R43667, July 30, 2014)

Solomon-Fears said, "The entry of more and more women into the paid labor force also made childbearing outside of marriage more economically feasible." The belief that "parents should stay in unhappy marriage for the sake of the children" began to disappear after the 1960s.

Divorce became acceptable as adults centered on their happiness as opposed to the health and happiness of their children. "Marriage is now more likely to be viewed through a framework of adult fulfillment rather than through a framework of child well-being." (Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage," University of California Press, 2005, p. 136)

The typical age for first marriage in the U.S. is 27 for women and 29 for men. Even though cohabiting relationships are less stable than marriage, lasting two years as opposed to 8 years for marriage, "cohabitation has now become a common method of family formation." (Read more.)