There is a saying attributed to Groucho Marx: Marriage is a great institution - but who wants to live in an institution?
In Britain, divorce rates are falling. The reason for this is that it is now acceptable to live together and not get married in t
Read more…A Compelling Novel
I have recently read the Iris Murdoch novel, The Unicorn. It is what is technically referred to as a 'closed' novel in 'gothic' style; closed in the sense that the characters are constrained in a closed world by the structure of th
WHAT IS IT FOR?
For simplicity, we could say that sex functions at three levels. The primary function of sex is reproduction. Here the motive for courting and then having sex is to beget a baby. If that were all there were to it, then presumably h
Read more…There is an interesting item at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-happy-children-spouse-partner-relationship-unmarried-a8931816.html
The general drift is that marriage is broadly good for men but not for women and that having chil
Read more…Here is my translation of an early poem by Dante. It is written in the style of the "dolce stil novo" - The New Sweet Style, which started from a poem “Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore,” by Guido Guinizelli (d. c.1276) who is the sage mentioned b
Read more…I have been reading extracts from a translation of The Travels of Bronteas. Brointeas is travelling with his slave Phylon in ancient Cyprus. He visits a number of cities and temples most of which are dedicated to Aphrodite. What emerges is a picture
Read more…Around his house, here and there,
women’s clothes she did not wear.
Did former lovers leave them here
“Probably,” he said, “my dear.”
“Should I be jealous, now?”
she asked, crinkling her lovely brow.
“Oh, jealousy is such a pain,”
he answered, casually, aga
I am still reading, from time to time, the book of the diary of Sophia Tolstoy. Here I just want to pick out one theme from the many: jealousy. Sophia and her husband had a difficult marriage. The relationship was often stormy even though at times th
Read more…In the Spectator, Lara Prendergast writes:
From chaperones to modesty wear, a sexual reformation is underway. While embracing so much freedom, society is moving towards prudishness.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/the-sexual-reformation-has-opene
Read more…Here is a scenario. What do you think is going on here? What do you think may happen next? What would you say to Tom or to Mary? Do you think this scenario is common or unusual? How? Why?
Mary was, like many girls, rather frightened of sex as an adol
Read more…In this item I would like to bring together two ideas. The first idea is that of an implicit contract in the couple relationship. A contact is an agreement of the "If you do this, I'll do that" variety. There has to be some complementarity between tw
Read more…Here is an interesting article on relationships
The two main points are
1. that there is an important distinction between wha
Read more…This, of course, is a famous question, as much as anything for the fact that Freud confessed himself unable to answer it.
One of the most interesting statistics to come out of the analysis of the recent US election is surely the fact that 53% of whit
Read more…I am currently reading the diaries of Sophia Tolstoy who spent her life loving and fighting with her famous husband. He was a rich aristocrat who had a spiritual conversion and became a religious ascetic. He was thus intent upon renouncing all the th
Read more…It seems that use of dating sites has gone up strongly since the new American president took office. This raises the interesting question of why people want to be with someone. How much of forming a relationship is driven by fear? In uncertain times,
Read more…Here at Eleusis we have all been (separately) watching the film sequence Century of the Self. So far Adam has watched the whole thing, I have watched about two thirds and Elja is about a quarter of the way through. It is the kind of film that in some
Read more…Anshin is a Japanese word, often translated as 'settled faith' as I explained in Anshin Part One yesterday. It is a particularly important term in Pureland Buddhism. However, the theme is of universal implication and relevance.
Bringing Peace to the
Read more…An important part of being a couple is sharing one's feelings. It is, however, an activity fraught with danger. The problem essentially lies in the fact that many of the feelings that a partner wants to express are feelings about the other partner an
Read more…I've been doing a bit of research on the usage of the La Ville au Roi (Eleusis) site. I find that there are equal numbers of men and women but, excluding the three of us who are resident at La Ville au Roi, there is a surprisingly large preponderance
Read more…In Japan there is currently a good deal of debate about pornography. Manga are comics. Back in the 1980s a woman called Keiko Takemiya brought out a comic series called The Poem of Wind and Trees that includes sex of all kinds. There is an article on
Read more…