One of the things people keep on saying is that things are bad now, and that in older times things have been better. I’ve said it myself.
But we forget that there have always been the ferals with us. We have always had women who are not only sex workers but also don’t know that being in a drunken stupor in the same bed as your babe puts the babe at risk.
And we have always had women who will cheerfully see their rival’s child sawn in half.
16Later, two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. 17The one woman said, “Please, my lord, this woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth while she was in the house. 18Then on the third day after I gave birth, this woman also gave birth. We were together; there was no one else with us in the house, only the two of us were in the house. 19Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. 20She got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant slept. She laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. 21When I rose in the morning to nurse my son, I saw that he was dead; but when I looked at him closely in the morning, clearly it was not the son I had borne.” 22But the other woman said, “No, the living son is mine, and the dead son is yours.” The first said, “No, the dead son is yours, and the living son is mine.” So they argued before the king.
23Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son that is alive, and your son is dead’; while the other says, ‘Not so! Your son is dead, and my son is the living one.’” 24So the king said, “Bring me a sword,” and they brought a sword before the king. 25The king said, “Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other.” 26But the woman whose son was alive said to the king — because compassion for her son burned within her — “Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!” The other said, “It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it.” 27Then the king responded: “Give the first woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother.” 28All Israel heard of the judgment that the king had rendered; and they stood in awe of the king, because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to execute justice.
Where our age is in error is we believe Rousseau: that the savage, the feral is noble. From this flows the ideas that all should be equal, that women should not have to regulate their behaviour, and that there will be no consequences.
This is not the case. We all have to regulate our behaviour. Men do so by noticing but not staring at times, women do so by not giving men reason to stare at times. (It is not loving to dress for a nightclub at work, or uglify oneself). And most people train their children to understand you get what you put in: if you want to succeed in any activity you have to put the effort in.
It does not come merely by breathing. The ancients had ferals: thieves, whores, slatterns and seducers. But they did not emulate them. Neither should we.