...Amanda...

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...Amanda... has posted five annotations/comments since 12 May 2020.

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Second Reading

About Tuesday 7 April 1668

...Amanda...  •  Link

"and there saw the several players, men and women go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one to another, after the play is done."

I wonder if what Pepys is witnessing is that sort of theatrical, high camp, Polari communication style? Pretty and strange seem apt descriptors if so.

About Sunday 23 February 1667/68

...Amanda...  •  Link

"and I am glad of it, for it is fit the wretch should have something to content herself with."

I wonder if this is an allusion to them not having children? It wouldn't then have been a topic to trigger a lot of consideration (either God willed it or he didn't), and there wasn't much in the way of language for mental states, but the sense of something missing would have been there, and babies being women's job, maybe that's what Pepys notices and pities his wife not having something to content herself with?

About Monday 20 May 1667

...Amanda...  •  Link

Agreed Louise, it was a different mindset back then. To imagine that 17th c women considered they were oppressed/harrassed etc but did nothing about it is to assume people were stupid/helpless and that's an error. The sense of male entitlement that Sam displays, ie of doing what he wants with women on their own, is what morality, manners and religion is struggling against. The views of the women don't come into his thinking, however, in the case of the married women at least, I hope that they could have instructed the servants not to open the door if they didn't want Sam to come in, and so his attentions were not entirely unwelcome.

About Saturday 11 May 1667

...Amanda...  •  Link

Is Pepys saying that he not only swore at his wife (for which he hopes god will forgive him) but also that he hit her ('bent his fist')? I note he doesn't ask God's forgiveness for that. Seventeenth century male entitlement!