Bad Wife Research Articles

"There Are Only Good Mothers": The Ideological Work of Women's Fertility in France before World War I

Woman, wife, mother, nature. In the decades before 1914, the declining birthrate in France brought these four terms to the forefront of an intense controversy.' ForJules Simon, senator for life in the French Third Republic from 1875 to 1896, the connections between these four words were both unambiguous and yet, somehow disturbing. Good and bad wives, yes, he seemed to say, but not bad mothers, surely. A bad mother would not be a mother at all, perhaps not really a woman -how would we classify her? Simon's willful lack of comprehension, expressed in the

Ginseng and Appalachian Culture: Settlement to Contemporary Times

Lonzo Mullins: I love it in these hills and I'll spend the rest of my days here. 36 Ginseng and Appalachian Culture: Settlement to Contemporary Times by Steve Mooney The root of the ginseng plant has long been prized by the Far Easterner and the American Indian. As long as 5,000 years ago the Chinese, believing the medicinal and aphrodisiacal powers of the root, began to develop an extensive market for ginseng, which they called "jen-shen" ("manlike") because of its gnarled, human-shaped root. And perhaps just as long ago native Americans began to use the root, in combination with jimsonweed and pokeroot, to produce a hypnotic, trancelike state in youths who were preparing to undergo coming-of-age rituals or in medicine men who wanted to commune with the gods. Interestingly, these native Americans too were struck by the shape of the ginseng root and called the plant "garantoquen ," which also means "manlike." Ginseng in Colonial North America According to historians, white men first became active in the North American ginseng trade in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, some 50 to 75 years before the Revolutionary War. Around 1700, Father Joseph Lafitau, who had been a missionary in China and had participated in the ginseng trade there, noticed the use of a remarkably similar plant by Mohawk Indians in Canada. Like Asiatic ginseng (panax pseudoginseng), the plant used by the Mohawks had a stiff stalk which branched out into leaf groups or "prongs" divided into five fingers like a human hand, and at the topmost center of the stalk bright red berries appeared in late summer or early fall, when the leaves began to turn a yellow-gold color. Since Lafitau knew the value of ginseng in the Orient, he decided to join the Mohawks in gathering the North American variety (panax quinquefolium), hoping to export it to China. Lafitau soon built several large drying ovens and taught the Mohawks to cure ginseng by this method. Within a few years Lafitau had developed a bustling export business and by 1717 Indians from as far away as Green Bay, Wisconsin, were bringing ginseng to ship to China via France (Mellinger 1975, 245). Within another decade or two knowledge of ginseng had spread to the other European groups living in North America and the plant's root had become touted as a powerful aphrodisiac, potent hypnotic, and a surefire cure for almost any ill. A little ginseng root, folk knowledge stated, could cure sexual impotence , ward off the ills associated with old age, provide a quick fix for a stomachache , settle a bad case of nerves, and paradoxically, act both as stimulant to 37 those in need of a lift and sedative to those in need of rest. The comments of William Byrd in The History of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina, Run in the Year of Our Lord 1718 are representative of colonists ' beliefs about ginseng, and identify several of the supposed powers of the plant's root: To help cure fatigue, I used to chew a root of ginseng as I walked along. This kept up my spirits. It gives an uncommon warmth and vigor to the blood. It cheers the heart of a man that has a bad wife, and makes him look down with great composure upon the crosses of the world. It will make old age amiable by rendering it lively, cheerful and good humored. (Mellinger 1975, 247) Ginseng and Appalachia: Settlement to Civil War Ginseng has been a part of the folk culture of Appalachia since frontiersmen began to push westward in sporadic numbers in the first half of the eighteenth century, and since the first permanent settlements appeared in the region in the 1760s. As early as the 1780s references to ginseng and mountain culture began to appear. In 1784 George Washington wrote: "In passing through the mountains, I met a number of persons and pack horses going over the mountains with ginseng" (Mellinger 1975, 247). In 1793 Francois Andre Michaux noted that ginseng was the only product of Kentucky that was worth overland transportation to Philadelphia (Mellinger 1975, 247). A few years later, in 1802...

The unanimous society remarks on the generative behaviour of the Japanese society in an extraordinary year

The moon calendar which had been in use in Japan for centuries was officially abolished and replaced by the Gregorian calendar on 1st January, 1872. Many convictions, however, related to the old moon calendar are still very much alive, and even being revived, and their impact on social life is much greater than is generally known and understood outside Japan. One such conviction is the superstitious belif that all girls born in a 43rd year of the moon calendar, in the year of the fire-horse, will later turn out to be bad wives. The superstitious belief resulted in dramatic decrease of the birth rate in 1966, the last year of the fire-horse.

The Folktale Origin of The Taming of the Shrew

HE title Taming of the Shrew, apart from Shakespeare's comedy, has been applied to many literary creations, subliterary pieces, and folktales in which a bad wife is improved. By folklorists, however, this designation has been reserved for Tale Type goT in the Aarne-Thompson Types AdX HEIR=> of the Folk-Tale, where it is summarized as follows: youngest of three sisters is a shrew. For their disobedience the husband shoots his dog and his horse. Brings his wife to submission. Wager: whose wife is the most obedient.' Similar to Type 90i is Tale Type I370, The Lazy Cat, in which a husband beats his cat for not working and simultaneously punishes his wife, who must hold the cat during the beating. In both tales a man cures his bad wife by administering cruel and irrational punishment to a recalcitrant animal; also, the texts of both types frequently share further traits, such as the wager on the wives' obedience. Other similar devices to tame a bad wife are sometimes found in folktales, and all of these stories involving some kind of violent trick by a husband make up an interrelated group of oral narratives which may be called Taming of the Shrew Complex. Considering the broad distribution of these tales and the evident relationship Shakespeare's play has to them, it is surprising that no lengthy study of the complex has been attempted. Although a few folklorists have commented upon individual texts of Types 90i, I370, and related tales, none has produced a definitive analysis of them.3 Shakespearian scholars have concerned themselves very little with folktale analogues of the play, but rather have concentrated upon the possible literary influences.