Both our kids went through a period of complaining about \u201crules.\u201d They thought they were stupid and uncalled for didn\u2019t make any sense and they shouldn\u2019t apply to them. I tried to explain that as long as they lived in an organized society, rules and laws were necessary \u2014 they couldn\u2019t just do as they pleased \u2014 their actions had an effect on other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess we all go through that thought process from time to time. From \u201cNo Parking\u201d zones to \u201cNo Smoking\u201d areas to the amount of water a toilet can use when it\u2019s flushed\u2026. it sometimes seems as if our society operates under too many rules and regulations. Sometimes it sure seems like it\u2019s getting worse \u2014 I don\u2019t remember so many rules in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But \u2014 if you go back even just as far as the middle ages, virtually everything was regulated, and the regulations often varied according to social class. Take weddings for example \u2014 where the nobility could invite 48 people to their weddings, but servants or day laborers could only have 32 guests. And the wedding banquet or reception had to start promptly at noon in summer or at 11 a.m. in winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just look at some of the \u201ccrimes\u201d and the punishments that were imposed\u2026
If a husband allowed his wife to rule the home or hit him, his fellow villagers would come to his house and remove the roof.\u00a0
The poor soul who fell asleep in church was forced to wear a heavy wooden rosary and stand by the church door before the service for a number of the following Sundays.
Fines were imposed for going to a fortune-teller or wearing a dress of more than two colors or arriving late for a wedding or serving meals or wine to guests after a baptism or being on the street at night without a lighted lantern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In England a court sought to reduce competition among bakers by fixing the price of bread. It stipulated that fluctuations in the price of wheat would determine not the price of bread, but its weight. The statute also fixed the price of a gallon of ale according to the price of wheat, oats and barley. (The practice of adding extra bread to each loaf to avoid punishment for selling underweight bread is thought to be the origin of the \u201cbakers dozen\u201d \u2014 where, if a dozen loaves were ordered the buyer would, in effect, receive 13.) Bakers who sold loaves of bread that were too light for the advertised size were placed in something called a \u201cbakers cage\u201d or \u201cbakers chair,\u201d a seesaw device that dunked the baker in a pond. The number of dunkings was determined by the difference between the wrong weight and the right weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, it\u2019s daunting enough to have to ask the father of your partner for their child\u2019s hand in marriage. This practice is done out of respect \u2014 the answer given doesn\u2019t decide your future, and you can still get married, even if the father doesn\u2019t give his blessing. This wasn\u2019t the case in the middle ages. Your rank in society played a big role in medieval life, especially for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Peasants and serfs working and living under landowners essentially had no freedom. A man wanting to get married not only had to get the father\u2019s permission but also their landowners\u2019s. For a woman it was even worse. If her husband died, the landowner could force her to marry another man in a relatively short amount of time.
So, the next time you are late to a wedding, or let your wife beat you up, just be happy you live in the 21st century\u2026..
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Both our kids went through a period of complaining about \u201crules.\u201d They thought they were stupid and uncalled for didn\u2019t make any sense and they shouldn\u2019t apply to them. I tried to explain that as long as they lived in … Continue reading