Manly Honor - Southern, Northern & Modern Views

Old Virginia Blog ^ | 12/11/2012 | Richard Williams

[Davy Buck]

". . . when I served as a Magistrate for the Commonwealth of Virginia, I was intrigued to find out that it was still a misdemeanor in Virginia to impugn a woman's "virtue and chastity . . ."

[BenLurkin]

Men and women of substance, both Southerners and Northerners, believe in calling a spade a spade.

Anyone who came to the defense of Sandra Fluke was wasting their time.

[cripplecreek]

Yup we all knew what she was.

[x]

Many are the obsolete, unenforced laws that are still on the books. Examples:

In Winona Lake, Wisconsin, it is illegal to eat ice cream at a counter on Sunday. And don't expect to order a slice of cherry pie a la mode in Kansas on the Lord's Day. No restaurant is allowed to serve it unless they're willing to run afoul of local police. Marbles, Dominoes, and yo-yos are also banned on Sundays in a handful of states.

Fluke's strategy may have made reference obliquely to an older sense of honor that many still feel in their bones, but more than that it had to do with modern-day political correctness. There are actually some similarities between traditional ideas of honor and contemporary group touchiness, as both have to do with reputation or recognition and the harm that insults can do. Fluke's blast at Rush Limbaugh was effective because it played on this connection.

Unlike the Northern code of honor, which emphasized emotional restraint, moral piety, and economic success, the Southern honor code in many ways paralleled the medieval honor code of Europe — combining the reflexive, violent honor of primitive man with the public virtue and chivalry of knights.

Sounds like that's not entirely to the North's disadvantage.

[Conservative4Ever]

A true lady would never have discussed her sexual proclivities in public in the first place. The rest is a moot point.

[Svartalfiar]

Sigh... that is a long post, and actually the fourth one? (He says previous three, but this one is labeled VI..?)

Anyways, glancing through it looks good so I’ll have to read through em all later. Some of us still believe in chivalry. :)

[Sherman Logan]

The southern code of honor was closer to shame-based than true honor-based. It addressed more the public perception of the person than his actual moral worth. Which is why the article references “public virtue.”

The northern concept, at least in theory, was more about the person’s actual character than the public perception of it.

It is certain that over the course of the 19th century the northern version evolved away from the notion of raw violence as the primary way of maintaining one’s honor, while the southern version retained it. The concept of dueling to maintain one’s honor, whether formalized or not, is the classic example. A man accused of a dishonorable act could maintain his honor by killing his accuser in a duel. This pointedly ignores the issue of whether he actually committed the dishonorable act and makes maintenance of honor the result of more efficient violence.

Today southern whites have much higher rates of homicide and violence than northern whites, and it is likely some of the reason ties back into these different ideas of honor.

[Sherman Logan]

A true lady would never have discussed her sexual proclivities in public in the first place.

I'm no fan of Ms. Fluke or the policies she promotes, but in the interest of accuracy it should be pointed out that she did no such thing.

Her "testimony" was largely about the effects of lack of coverage for contraception on female students at her school in general terms, not about their effect on her personally.

AFAIK, there was no testimony about her own personal sexual activities or preferences.

BTW, we would never really have heard of her if Rush hadn't made her a celebrity.

[Blue Collar Christian]

“Anyone who came to the defense of Sandra Fluke was wasting their time.”

Our chivalrous President was there in shining armor! Of course he’s of the party from Topsie-Turvie town...so it meant a lot to those it was supposed to, thus not a waste of his time off the links.

[SuziQ]

Sadly, that is true, and I hope Rush learned something important from the experience. Sometimes you should ignore things, and not give them more ‘press’ than they deserve.