Dahut's attempt to rape her father would definitely have got this book banned at school. The account is not pornographic but definitely explicit.
It is extraordinary to read about characters who are pious, sing hymns, conduct elaborate religious ceremonies and yet believe that it is sacrilegious for their King not to practice polygamy and even incest. However, humanity is capable of a wide range of behaviours. What counts as socially acceptable and even as sane covers a very broad spectrum. And these are realistic characters usually accepting without question the social norms that have been presented to them. Unfortunately, norms clash, especially in a continent-wide Empire.
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For example, many cultures (including ours, at times) think it's morally obligatory to do your best to kill anyone who insults you in certain ways.
Hence Andy Jackson's mother's advice to him as a small boy: "Andy, don't you never take a man to law for slander, or assault. Handle them cases yourself."
He did.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Andrew Jackson nearly died acting on that barbaric attitude, he got a serious bullet wound to the chest.
Something similar happened to Rudyard Kipling as late as the 1890's. He married an American girl and apparently thought seriously of living permanently in the US. But threats from a quarrelsome brother-in-law caused Kipling to file a lawsuit against him--only to be inundated by a torrent of scorn and mockery. It drove Kipling out of the US.
I far prefer Kipling's civilized way of handling disputes!
Ad astra! Sean
It's time-travel, in a way.
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Kipling was a Victorian Englishman; he expected people who looked and (more or less) talked like him and had British names to think and act like him.
But even in the 1890's, Americans in many respects did act and think like Englishmen... 17th century Englishmen, that is.
They regarded legal stuff as there to protect property, and the weak -- women, children, priests.
For a grown man not to 'handle them cases yourself' was to confess effeminate weakness and cowardice.
American versions of the English language were similarly old-fashioned; the technical term is 'peripheral conservatism'.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that was interesting, 1890's Americans were still thinking like 17th century Englishmen. It explains how and why Kipling was treated as he was.
It also reminded me of how the Catholic Church had been condemning dueling as nothing but murder since the Council of Trent. And the 1917 Code of Canon Law promulgated by Benedict XV included a canon decreeing automatic excommunication for all Catholics who took part in any way in duels.
Ad astra! Sean
Dueling seems to have ended a bit earlier in Canada than the US.
According to this the last duel in what is now Canada occurred in the 1830s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lyon_(duellist)
Kaor, Jim!
Closer ties with the UK probably did its bit to discouraging dueling in Canada. But that barbaric practice lasted longer in the US and mainland Europe.
Ad astra! Sean
Strictly speaking, dueling had been illegal in all of Europe for centuries before the practice died out.
The law was there, but it wasn't -enforced- until public sentiment turned against it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True, and you reminded me of how one of the clauses in the coronation oath sworn by the kings of France was promising never to pardon duelists.
I suspect the huge blood shed of WW I did its part in discouraging dueling.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: more of a class thing, I suspect. Aristos had been the core of support for dueling. They always knew the Church disapproved, but only the -unusually- pious cared; that was the sort of thing 'women and priests' were concerned with.
Most of the men involved were conventionally religious, but simultaneously thought priests were effeminate weaklings.
Sort of like the sexual double standard -- also not recognized in formal law, but widely followed in practice.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree about the "class" factor encouraging tolerance of dueling. But there was a movement starting in the late 19th century in which even aristocrats would promise to have nothing to do with dueling. Yes, mostly by people serious about their faith.
Ad astra! Sean
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