This is a fairly lengthy
chapter with copious (200+) footnotes. The overall thesis is that
Christians treated children really poorly and that helped lead to holy
wars, which fits into the book's larger thesis, as implied by the title, that child abuse is the reason for war. Its high number of footnotes certainly makes it look well-researched and on strong grounding at first glance... but is it? This post will be an examination of some of its claims.
My introductory section is a bit long, so if you want to
just get to the examination of how well it represents its sources, skip
to the "The Examination" section--or if you just want the overall
conclusion, skip to the "The Conclusion" section.
Note: There is now a sequel post available here in which I go through more of the citations found in the chapter. I
note this at the end of this post, but felt it would be good to put it
at the start also.
THE INTRODUCTION
For some background, Lloyd deMause is an advocate of what is called "Psychohistory"
which is the study of events in history according to psychology. More
specifically, Lloyd deMause believes that improved treatment of children
is the reason for the perceived improvement of civilization, as
ill-treated children
internalize this and are more badly behaved as adults. So the progress of civilization over time can be traced to children being treated increasingly well. But deMause is perhaps better known for his controversial assertions of how poorly treated children were in the past, alleging mass infanticide, rape, and torture of children.
The overall accuracy of those claims of his are beyond the scope of this blog post to address. Indeed, this blog post will be of a fairly limited scope in examining the accuracy of deMause's presentation of his sources in the "Bipolar Christianity" chapter. A full examination of the chapter will not be attempted, as there is simply too much to tackle. So, to be clear, what this blog post will be doing is examining the first 24 sources in this chapter and how well deMause represents what they say--originally I did the first 16 (first three paragraphs), but felt I should do a bit more just to be sure and thus went through an additional paragraph, bringing it up to 24.
That may not seem like that much, but it took a good amount of time to do find copies of all of the sources in order to check on them, and I do not feel it is worth it to do more. However, if we examine the sources in the early paragraphs, we can
assume with reasonable probability that the accuracy we see in them is
the same level of accuracy we will see elsewhere in the chapter--and
most likely, the full book, and perhaps his writings as a whole.
We'll use PolitiFact's categories of True, Mostly True, Half-True,
Mostly False, False, and Pants On Fire for the accuracy of him presenting his sources.
What
level of accuracy it gets will be dependent on several factors. First,
all quotes are expected to be exact quotations. Switching a verb's tense
is acceptable to make it fit a sentence, but nothing else. Second, if
he cites a source that backs him up, but the source for the source does
not, that will be counted as inaccurate because he should have looked up
the source's source--though not as inaccurate as if he misrepresented his own source.
Unfortunately, deMause can be a
sloppy with his citations. There are cases where he gets the page
numbers wrong. This raises the question of what to do when he makes a
citation, and the quote isn't there, as there is the possibility it's on some other page. In all such cases, I will make at least an effort to
try to find if it's on some other page, but if I cannot, it will be
marked down harshly. (note that if I do find it, it'll still result in a
markdown of one level on the citations, for not getting the page number
right)
With that, let us begin! Sort of. The initial part of the essay gives no sources but I wish to briefly analyze it before we get into the actual source analysis.
Before the chapter itself really starts off, we begin with a source by St. Augustine saying
"Who would not shudder if he were given the choice of eternal death or
life again as a child? Who would not choose to die?" No source is given
for this quote, and searching for it only turns up equally non-sourced
citations. This is not a promising start, but due to lack of source we will not take it into our considerations. Next:
That all
human sin and misery came into the world through the first woman, Eve,
is the founding belief of both Judaism and Christianity, and the origin
of the most severely misogynistic cultures in history. When a girl was
born, said early Hebrews, “the walls wept.”
This portion is not sourced so I will not give an assessment, but I wish to analyze the claims made here. The claim that "all human sin and
misery came into the world through the first woman, Eve, is the founding
belief of both Judaism and Christianity" (emphasis added) is patently false.
My
familiarity with Judaism is much less than my familiarity with
Christianity so I cannot speak authoritatively on this subject, but to
my understanding the "founding belief" of Judaism would be either the
covenant God established with Abraham and/or the covenant established
with Moses. Not that much emphasis is put on the Fall of Man in Judaism
compared to those. The Jewish Encyclopedia
notes that the Fall of Man is not referred to elsewhere in the Old
Testament (in contrast to the frequent references to Abraham and Moses)
and writes that "In modern Jewish thought the fall of man is without
dogmatic importance."
Christianity, however, does focus
considerably on the Fall of Man (whether interpreted literally or figuratively). But the New Testament does not teach
that Eve was responsible--or more accurately, it was not Eve alone. For
example, while 1 Timothy 2:14 writes "And Adam was not the one deceived;
it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner," Romans 5:12-19
(the fullest discussion of the subject in the New Testament) refers only
to Adam.
To be fair, some Christians have put more
blame on Eve than on Adam. But the "foundational belief" is that sin
entered the world through the first woman and first man--at least among those who consider Adam and Eve to have been real people. I would further argue that while the Fall of Man is very important, the actual "foundational belief" of Christianity is the Resurrection of Jesus.
The other claim made is that early Hebrews would say "The Walls Wept" when a
girl was born, a citation is not given here, but a different work of his
does repeat that claim:
"When a girl was born, said the Hebrews, “the walls wept.”59
59. Barbara Kaye Greenleaf, Children Through the Ages: A History of Childhood. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978, p. 7."
(from chapter 8 of "The Emotional Life of Nations")
That quote is found in the cited source, which states:
"When
a boy was born, the Hebrews said “a blessing has come into the world,”
but when a girl was born everyone agreed that “the walls wept."
However, this does not give a source, so its accuracy is unclear. Now we may move onto the actual examination of the sources.
THE EXAMINATION
As noted above, we will use the PolitiFact's
categories of True, Mostly True, Half-True,
Mostly False, False, and Pants On Fire for the accuracy of him
presenting his sources.
Girls were everywhere
considered “not worth raising” since they would not carry on the family
name, and so infanticide of girls by Killer Mothers by strangling,
drowning, exposure and sending to wet-nurses was so common among
Christians that high sex ratios (up to 400 boys to 100 girls and higher)
were common even among the rich.1
1 Lloyd deMause, Foundations of Psychohistory, New York: Creative Roots, 1982, pp. 117-123.
MOSTLY FALSE. It
is somewhat incredible that he should get a citation wrong when his
citation is his own work. And for that matter, why not simply cite the sources directly, rather than playing a game of "chase the citation"? I grabbed a copy and looked at pages 117-123,
in which he discusses how demographic data in the past indicates that there were
more males than females, asserting that infanticide is the cause. Whether his data and his explanation for it is accurate is beyond the scope of this essay, but in terms of supporting his claim here, he comes up quite short. The problem is that while he can point to some data points showing a male/female ratio as massive as what he claims above, none of those seem to be from Christian civilizations. When it comes to Christian civilizations, the numbers for boys are
often higher than that of girls--at least in the numbers he provides--but nowhere during Christian times are numbers that extreme
given. So, apparently, Lloyd deMause has managed to misread his own work.
The earlier portions of the essay I included in my quote are not given
citations. For this reason, they will not be calculated into the truthfulness rating, but I feel they should be examined. But, once again, these points have not been factored into the "Mostly False" rating (though to be honest, they would not change it anyway) as I am examining the accuracy of the representation of the sources. And the source given does not support the claim made concerning the high sex ratios in Christian times.
Coleman
found boys outnumbering girls up to two to one in a 9th century French
tax record, and concluded higher infanticide of girls was the cause.2
2 Emily Coleman, “Infanticide in the Early Middle Ages.” In Susan
Mosher Stuard, Ed., Women in Medieval Society. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1976, pp. 47-70.
MOSTLY TRUE. This book can be examined here. The problem is, however, while she raises higher infanticide of girls as a likely possibility, she does not conclude
it was the cause. See page 63, where she says "We make no claim to the
solutions [to the considerable outnumbering of girls by boys] here."
Newborn
girls, like Eve, “were considered as full of dangerous pollution…and
were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished,
raped, and neglected than boys. Everyone agreed girls should be fed less
than boys; as Jerome put it, ‘Let her meals always leave her hungry.’”3
3 Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations. New York: Other Press, 2002, p. 294.
MOSTLY FALSE. So here he cites himself... which is very odd. Why does he not simply offer the citation he provides there? I have difficulty coming up with a reason for him doing this other than "this might get people to buy his book." Anyway, this is on page 294, sort of. Here is what he writes:
"Girls from birth have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution–the projected hatred toward mothers of adults–and were therefore more often killed, exposed, abandoned, malnourished, raped, and neglected than boys. Everyone agreed girls should be fed less; as Jerome put it, "Let her meals always leave her hungry."61
61 F.A. Wright, Select Letters of St. Jerome, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933, p. 357."
Technically, he doesn't quote himself quite correctly, as in Bipolar Christianity he puts in that girls "were considered as full of dangerous pollution..." whereas in the book he's supposedly quoting from, it says "have everywhere been considered full of dangerous pollution." This is admittedly a minor point that does not change the meaning, but I do expect a quotation to be exact--though compared to other quoting errors we'll see from him, this is relatively benign.
So now we come to the question of his citation here. The quote is actually on page 361; deMause gives the wrong page number. One may see it here. The letter is also available here in a format I think is easier to read, though it is a different translation.
So here is the phrase:
"I do not wish here to give long
rules for eating, since I have treated that subject
more fully in another place; but let her meals
always leave her hungry and able at once to begin
reading or praying or singing the psalms."
Jerome's statement, however, is in reference to one individual who happened to be female; the usage of "let her meals always leave her hungry" is not, as deMause frames it, some general statement for women. Indeed, there is no indication that her being female has anything to do with Jerome's advice here--this appears to be intended as a general suggestion for raising children by Jerome. Thus, it would apply to males as well. In any event, deMause has not supported his claim that women were fed less nor his claim that women "were considered as full of dangerous pollution."
Of the 600 families in Delphic inscription records, just one percent reared two daughters.4
4
Susan Scrimshaw, “Infanticide in Human Populations,” in Glenn Hausfater
and Sarah Hrdy, Eds., Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary
Perspectives. New York: Aldine Transaction, p. 439.
MOSTLY FALSE.
There is no mention of Delphic inscription records on page 439. To be
fair, page 439 is the start of the article, so perhaps the mention of
page 439 is to show where it starts. But the article is from pages
439-462. I skimmed through it but did not see any mention of
Delphic inscriptions, though it is possible I missed something. However, then we come to this problem: The "Delphic inscription records" are from a pre-Christian era (this is confirmed by his mention of them elsewhere--for example, he refers to them in the "Foundations of Psychohistory" mentioned in the first footnote we examined). Thus it is incorrect of deMause to try to use it to refer to Christian families.
As
Christian girls grew up, they were constantly told of their
worthlessness and sinful lustfulness. Women, said Tertullian, were
“irrational, more prone to lust than men, and at every turn waiting to
seduce men,” so husbands had to beat them all the time to keep them from
sinning.5
5 Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean, Eds.,
Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1995, pp. 10-11.
MOSTLY FALSE.
deMause claims that Tertullian said that quote. The problem, however,
is that if you look at the applicable page number of the source, that is
not a quote Tertullian said, but a summary of his beliefs by someone
else. From my understanding of Tertullian, it is an uncharitable though not exactly inaccurate summary of his beliefs. However, it is silly to take someone else's
paraphrase and claim Tertullian said it, as is the case here. But even
worse, the mention of "so husbands had to beat them all the time to keep
them from sinning" is not found in the citation! Nothing about beatings
is mentioned! That's simply him throwing out a claim without giving any
citation for it.
“A good woman and a bad one
equally require the stick” ran a Florentine saying, and medieval laws
concluded: “Provided he neither kills nor maims her, it is legal for a
man to beat his wife…”6
6 Frances and Joseph Gies, Women in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1978, p. 46.
MOSTLY TRUE. This may be found here.
Of course, this turns into an annoying game of "chase the citation"
(that is taking a citation, looking it up, only to find another citation).
First, here is what Women in the Middle Ages says:
"Despite such pieties as the Roman de la Rose's
"Serve and honor all women," wife-beating was common. "A good woman and
a bad one equally require the stick!" ran a Florentine saying.27 The
thirteenth-century French law code, Customs of Beauvais, stated:
"In a number of cases men may be excused for the injuries they inflict
on their wives, nor should the law intervene. Provided he neither kills
nor maims here, it is legal for a man to beat his wife when she wrongs
him."28"
While it does mention the saying, the latter
quote is, while problematic to the modern ear, less extreme than deMause
makes it sound. He leaves out the very important qualifying phrase
"when she wrongs him" and the opening "In a number of cases men may be
excused" indicates it is the exception rather than the rule.
But as to its citations? Well, the citations are:
27. Edgcumbe Staley, The Guilds of Florence. New York, 1967, p. 91.
28. Coutumes de Beauvaisis, ed. A. Salmon. Paris, 1899, p. 335.
We'll start with the second. Looking it up, the source is apparently here, though it is possible it refers to the second volume.
Now, I unfortunately cannot read French, so I cannot confirm it--but
running some phrases through Google Translate, I do not see something
similar to the citation. It is possible the page number is wrong, the
translation is in error, or something else.
As for the first, we can see that here.
The quote is there... but does not give a citation itself, though I
suppose it's often hard to give a source for a saying. Though it implies
this may be in reference to trials. So this citation is, while exaggerated, true enough to qualify for Mostly True.
St.
Paul said that women had to cover their heads in church because
otherwise “lice-like demons would leap like sparks from female hair and
poison the church.”7
7 Corinthians 11:10.
PANTS ON FIRE! "Lice-like demons would leap like sparks from female
hair and poison the church" is not in 1 Corinthians 11:10. Look it up in
a Bible, and even look at the verses around it--it's not there at all.
In fact, this quote is found nowhere in the Bible. Perhaps this is an interpretation someone offered of the verse, but such
an interpretation is not what is cited (further, a search for that
phrase only turned up deMause's writing here or people asking if it's a real
quotation). This citation is thus completely nonsensical. It's
especially absurd because the Bible is one of the easiest books in the
world to look up a citation--did he simply not bother?
Also, while a minor note, it is interesting that it only gives "Corinthians
11:10". Why? Because there are two epistles to the Corinthians. This
suggests the author either made a typo he didn't catch... or is so
unfamiliar with the epistles to the Corinthians he does not know there are two of them.
Plus, of course, women were liable to turn into witches at any time
and remove a man’s penis; as John Chrysostom maintained, “All witchcraft
comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable.”8
8 Wolfgang Lederer, The Fear of Women. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968, pp. 199-200.
HALF-TRUE.
Oddly, rather than cite a primary source showing where Chrysostom actually said this, it gives
this secondhand source. This is something we will find
repeatedly--rather than cite a Christian writer directly, he will
instead cite someone quoting them. This is problematic, as our example
will show.
The source for this Chrysostom quote offered by the work is "Malleus Maleficarum, p. 47". Looking it up here,
the statement is there... but it doesn't present it as a quote, and
most certainly doesn't attribute it to Chrysostom. While I can't rule
out the possibility Chrysostom said it somewhere, the citation does not attribute it to him. Did deMause not check the source given by his source? This is exactly why
secondhand sources are so dangerous for quotes. For the record,
nothing about a man's penis is in Malleus Maleficarum on that page.
I'll be
charitable and say "Half-True" rather than False only because his
source actually made that claim, even if his source was incorrect (and
he very well should have checked its source's source to be sure!)
Parents in early Christian families routinely beat their little girls
badly from early infancy in order to punish their lustfulness. The
historical records contain hundreds of descriptions of beating girls “to
discipline them, as with this father who punished a little girl for
four hours: ‘the little girl in the diapers would not receive her
discipline. She cried and cried and he kept hitting her…He told me, you
spank her till she breaks…But she didn’t break and, after four hours, he
couldn’t continue.’”9
9 Philip Greven, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment
and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1991, p. 37.
FALSE. Note that he is
claiming this is about "early Christian families." But if you look up
the citation given, you will discover that what is being described is
the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, "a small apocalyptic sect, founded in 1972 in Chattanooga, Tennessee."
I'll repeat that for emphasis. This quote, supposedly from a parent in an early Christian family, is referring to a family from the last several decades. The
ridiculousness and astonishing misrepresentation speaks for itself. For
the record, the source that Greven supplies for this is:
Colin Nickerson, "Affidavits Allege Sect Beatings," The Boston Globe, July 14. 1984, p. 31.
This
article does not appear available online, so I was unable to check on it, but I offer it for reference for anyone curious. In any event, deMause's misrepresentation, intentional or
not, is downright shocking.
Why False rather than Pants
On Fire? Because if you look at his phrasing, it is technically not saying this quote is concerning early Christians. That is, of course, the impression any reader would take away, of course. He
makes his claim regarding "early Christian families" and then says that
in the "historical record" one can find examples, and technically anytime before the very present is a "historical record." So he manages to squeak by with a simple False.
Teaching
girls in schools was not allowed, Aelred said (1170), because the
teacher might be tempted to show them affection. Teachers, he said, were
“angry one minute and smiling the next, now threatening, now
flattering, kissing one child and smacking another. When she sees one of
them crying after being smacked she calls her close, strokes her cheek,
puts her arms around her neck and holds her tight,” 10 producing a
moment of forbidden closeness.
10 Susanna Greer Fein, “Maternity
in Aelred of Rievaulx’s Letter to His Sister.” In John Carmi Parsons and
Bonnie Wheeler, Eds., Medieval Mothering. New York: Garland Publishing,
1996, p. 146.
MOSTLY FALSE. Here Aelred is
misrepresented. I shall quote a more full version. (note: By "the
sister" it refers to nuns) I'll cut into the middle of a paragraph, as
the earlier portions aren't really relevant. Note the bracketed insertions are in the work:
"As
recluse, the sister must spurn motherhood of all kinds except in an
interiorized emulation of the Virgin and Jesus. Moreover, Aelred's
rhetoric of instruction positions here not as mother but instead as a
daughter ready to accept the counsel of "abbot as mother." Since this
counsel is also from a sibling of opposite gender, the subject of
maternity becomes nuanced further with thoughts of bodily difference
relatedness, and shared family heritage, for which lack of offspring
would have had some import.
The topic of motherhood
often enters the latently charged context of De institutione inclusarum,
where it is shaded in ways ranging from condemnation of sinful
pregnancy to full-blown meditation upon God's incarnation in Mary. As
one would expect, when Aelred advises his sister on external behaviors,
the sentiments that prevail are anti-maternal. The rules, for example,
prohibit Aelred's sister from ever establishing a school for girls, for
teaching children may lead to misplaced affections:
Swayed
by their childish dispositions, [the recluse] is angry one minute and
smiling the next, now threatening, now flattering, kissing one child and
smacking another. When she sees one of them crying after being smacked
she calls her close, strokes her cheek, puts her arms around her neck
and holds her tight, calling her: "my own baby girl, my own pet." There
before her very eyes, even though she may not yield to them, the recluse
has worldly and sensual temptations, and amid them all what becomes of
her continual remembrance of God?"
As we can see, this
has nothing to do with problems of teaching girls in particular. Nor is
Aelred saying this is how teachers were. He is warning that a nun is
in danger of acting in such a way should they be a teacher, as they
would be swayed by the childish dispositions of the children--and this is due to the children being of young age, not because they were female.
Christian
priests and nuns backed bloody beatings as necessary to punish the
child’s endless sins, since, as Augustine put it, “If the infant is left
to do what he wants, there is no crime it will not plunge into.”11
11 Elisabeth Badinter, Mother Love: Myth and Reality. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1984, p. 30.
HALF-TRUE. As with Chrysostom, a
direct citation is not given. This is often a sign of a misquote of
some kind, if they are unable to actually point to where someone said
it. Now, I looked at the book. Page 30 does give the first quote, and
attributes it to City of God, Book XII, Chapter 22.
The problem is, the quote isn't there. So like the Chrysostom citation, I will give a "Half True" because his citation did say it, but the citation's source (which he should have verified, it's not like it's hard to look up Augustine's works!) did not. Things get worse for the next citation:
“Better that you should beat a child within an inch of its life than
that they would be cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity.”12
12 Ibid., p. 38.
FALSE. That quote isn't
found on page 38 of "Mother Love" at all. I considered the possibility
that perhaps he got the page number wrong, as he does screw up some
other citations in this manner by listing the wrong page. However, I looked up Augustine in the
Index and could find this quote on no page Augustine was mentioned.
It is possible, of course, that Augustine did say this somewhere. But deMause's source does not back him up on this.
The
constant sinfulness of all Christian children demands the maximum
torture or even death as punishment. Moses told the Israelites that “If a
man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice
of his father or the voice of his mother…all the men of his city shall
stone him with stones, that he die.”13
13 Deuteronomy 21: 18
TRUE.
It's actually Deuteronomy 21:18-21, but that's a minor point. However, this is part of the Jewish "Law" and most Christians consider it non-binding. Further, see here for an explanation of the passage irrespective of whether it is binding.
Little
changed in the next 1600 years of Christianity, as John Calvin decreed:
“Those children who violate parental authority are monsters. Therefore
the Lord commands all those who are disobedient to their parents to be
put to death.”14
14 Barbara Kay Greenleaf, Children Through the Ages: A History of Childhood. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1978, p. 90.
MOSTLY FALSE. This quotation is found in the book... sort of. Here is what is actually attributed to Calvin in the book:
"Those
who violated the parental authority by contempt or rebellion are not
men but monsters. Therefore the Lord commands all those who are
disobedient to their parents to be put to death."
This
is similar, but not exactly the same. The word "children" is inserted
into it by deMause, "violated" is changed to "violate", "by contempt or
rebellion" is removed, and "not men but monsters" is changed to simply
"monsters." It is problematic that this is not quoted properly. Especially
concerning is the insertion of "children", as its insertion seems to
have been done to try to buttress deMause's points.
But
another problem is that this work does not say where this quote from
Calvin is. Calvin could very well have said it, but no source is given,
and I have learned to be extremely wary of any supposed quote attributed to someone without a
source cited. Due to failure to actually back up where this was from, I would have normally given this a Half-True, but deMause's change to the quote dropped it down.
If a young woman should simply speak to someone who was not approved
by her father, that was enough of a sin for Constantine, the first
Christian emperor, to decree a penalty of “death by having molten lead
poured down her throat.”15
15 Jack Holland, Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice. Philadelphia, Running Press, 2006, p. 88.
FALSE. The citation actually says:
"Several years after the Edict of Milan, Constantine,
as the first Christian emperor, revealed the stern hand of the new,
increasingly absolutist morality. He passed a law that meted out the
death sentence to any virgin and her suitor for the crime of eloping
together. The penalty for any female slave held to have collaborated in
the enterprise (and they were always suspected of such collaboration)
was death by having molten lead poured down her throat."
As we can see, deMause's claim is nonsense. The source refers to a
virgin and suitor eloping together, not someone simply speaking to a
non-approved person (note that both suffer the punishment). And the
punishment of molten lead refers to a female slave who aided in the enterprise, not the woman who eloped. While a harsh law, deMause's representation of it--or at least his representation of the source he cited--is thoroughly inaccurate.
It was in fact sometimes a practice during the
Middle Ages to “bury an un-baptized infant with a stake through its
heart so that it would not arise and injure many,” so full of sin it was
at birth.16
16 Barbara A. Kellum, “Infanticide
in England in the Later Middle Ages.” History of Childhood Quarterly:
The Journal of Psychohistory 1(1974): 379.
TRUE.
The statement in the work is "The “despoiling” child could do even more
damage, though, if he died unbaptized. Thus, Burchard of Worms (ca.
1008-12) referred to the custom of burying an unbaptized infant with a
stake through its heart so that it would nor arise and injure many." The
citation given for this is "McNeill and Gamer, op. cit., p. 339" which
refers to a previous citation of "John R. McNeil and Helena M. Gamer,
trans., Medieval Handbooks of Penance, (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1938)".
We can find the relevant portion here:
https://archive.org/details/MedievalHandbooksOfPenance/page/n357
The
practice is, notably, condemned. But it appears it happened, even if it is unclear how frequent it occurred (deMause does only say "sometimes"). So I will count this as true.
I
planned to stop here, as I felt this examination of the first 16 citations had been sufficient evaluation of how reliable we could consider deMause to be. But thought I
should be fair and go on a bit longer to get a larger sample, so I decided to go on for an
additional paragraph. The result? Well, you'll see.
Most
of the murders, abandonments and tortures of Christian children were
accomplished by deeply depressed mothers and wet-nurses, since fathers
until early modern times had little to do with children during their
early years. Jean Gerson felt he had to advise fathers as late as the
15th century: “Let us not be ashamed of speaking to children.”17
17
Daniele Alexandre-Bidon and Didier Lett, Children in the Middle Ages:
Fifth–Fifteenth Centuries. Notre Dame: The University of Notre Dame
Press, 2000, p. 45.
HALF-TRUE. The source
appears to only apply to the second sentence, not the first (which is
uncited). However, this quote is not found on page 45. Through looking
up Jean Gerson in the Index, I was able to locate it on page 63, though
he leaves out a part:
“The most secular images of the
late Middle Ages let us witness great complicity between father and
child, in work as well as play: little ones gather acorns as the father
cuts down an oak, scare up birds in the field while he sows wheat, hold
the sheep’s feet while he shears them, and, during the grape harvest,
want to help trample the grapes in the vat.
As a
result, in literary sources as well as iconographical documents, even
before the famous advice of Jean Gerson who, at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, writes: “let us not be ashamed of speaking to
children as good and kind mothers would,” fathers “mothered.””
His
phrasing is unfortunately sort of confusing here due to the quotation
marks (no doubt made more confusing by my usage of quotations), but the author
is saying that even before Jean Gerson, fathers played a motherly role.
Nor does the source's page really support the claim that fathers prior
to "early modern times" (whenever that's supposed to refer to) were not
part of their childrens' lives. This would have gotten a Mostly True if
not for the wrong page number, which pushes it down.
Marriage
itself was sinful when spouses had sex for any reason other than to
produce a child. Fathers who paid some attention to their young children
only did so to express their ownership of them: “The father then lifted
the baby in the air above his head and kissed it on the thigh, calling
out ‘My Cattle,’ for that was what it represented to his imagination.”18
18 Ibid., p. 28.
FALSE. This
claim is not found on page 28 of the source (and I double checked to
make sure this was the same edition that was cited). It is possible
that, like the above quote, he simply got the page number wrong. But I
do not know how to look this quote up in the book--there is not anything I can think of
to look up in the Index. So for now, I will count it as False.
Girls
would not be around to take over their father’s cattle, of course,
since by the time they were 15-20 years old, the fathers would hand them
over to an older man to marry.19
19 Olwen Hufton, The Prospect
Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe: Vol. One. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1996; David Herlihy, Medieval Households. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 104-107.
TRUE.
I was not able to really get much out of the first citation (it’s very
long, and no specific pages are cited), but the latter is easy to find.
It is indeed true that by that age, girls usually were married.
(Actually
to be raped, since the girls would often not have even met their
so-called “husbands,” so what are called by historians “arranged
Christian marriages” were actually “arranged rapes.”) Girls were raped
so often by neighbors or employers they were often forced into lives of
prostitution if they should give birth. In addition, “throughout
medieval Europe daughters were loaned to guests as an act of
hospitality.”20
20 Samuel X. Radbill, “Children in a World of
Violence: A History of Child Abuse.” In Ray E. Helfer and Ruth S. Kempe,
The Battered Child. 4th Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987,
p. 9.
FALSE. The actual quote is "In some cultures daughters, as well as wives,
were loaned to guests as an act of hospitality." As we can see, the
quote in question does not specify it being in medieval Europe--he also
neglects to mention the fact wives were mentioned also. One may see the
source here.
It does mention that this is seen in "French medieval literature"
(among some other examples that were not medieval) but even if that is
true--no examples are given--that would apply only to France. Given that
it says "as well as wives," which seems like it would have been very
frowned on in the staunchly anti-adultery church, it would appear that
this is something that was not used in European cultures. I considered
Mostly False versus False, but the lack of examples in the source combined with the misleadingly edited quite prompted me to remove it to False.
The
source also does not back up the preceding sentences concerning the marriages being rapes, but to be fair
perhaps it was not supposed to, so I have not counted them in my grading
above. Still, it is notable that no citation is given for the girls
often not meeting their husbands (it isn’t in the citation), nor does
deMause explain how, even if that is the case, lack of meeting one’s husband before marriage
qualifies something as rape. Nor does he indicate how, as indicated by his sarcastic
quotations, it means they aren’t husbands. Similarly, there is no
citation to support the claim of the frequency of rape despite the fact
such a thing is incredibly important. Perhaps a previous chapter of the
book covered it. But in any event, my assessment of "False" was not
based on those sentences--I am addressing them only for the sake of
completeness.
Medieval girls were sometimes told to carry knives as they walked down the street—to ward off rapists21
21 David Nicholas, The Domestic Life of a Medieval City, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985, P. 64.
TRUE.
Of course, this doesn't mean much, as some women in the present day do
this, even if their weapons of choice are different. His argument seems
to come from the next part of the sentence, and we'll examine the faults
there:
—since the Christian men who might have protected them “seemed to regard their rape as a trivial issue.”22
22 Anna Clark, Women’s Silence, Men’s Violence: Sexual Assault in England, 1770-1845. London: Pandora Press, 1987, p. 44.
FALSE.
You may notice the problem even without having to look up the citation.
He starts out talking about "Medieval girls" but then points to book referring
to that has "1770-1845" in its title. One hardly backs up a claim about Medieval times by citing a book concerning the 18th and 19th centuries!
There is an additional problem. The context of
this is the discussion of the distribution of pamphlet literature, and
it mentions how the issue of rape wasn't mentioned in them, for example a
warning to women about the dangers of rape. However, the book notes
that this pamphlet literature was written for men, who wouldn't have
been that interested in reading about such thing. So this was not a statement that
they saw rape as "trivial issue", but rape in their literature as a "trivial issue".
When
psychoanalysts today work with women who have been raped as young
girls, they often find they cannot live with their buried rage and
humiliation, so they often identify with the rapist and abuse their own
children (identification with the perpetrator), saying “I am a man, I
get to have whatever I want.”23
23 Ellen
F. Wilson, “The Internal Obstructive Object in the Analysis of a Woman
Who Envies Her Rapist.” The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 128(2009): 806.
HALF-TRUE.
First, it is not clear what the number "128" is. 2009 corresponds to
Volume 78 of the Psychoanalytic Quarterly... a typo, perhaps?
Fortunately, the page number stated in the citation for the 2009 volume does lead to the
applicable article. A problem, however, is that the quote is not on page
806. Perhaps it is meant as a paraphrase, but again it is not presented
as such. Something similar is a quote from the patient the article is
about, which is (brackets original): "When I watch it [a pornographic movie], I am the man. I
feel his excitement. And then my thought is, this is the ultimate form
of penis envy. It's about power. He gets to have whatever he wants. But I
want to see him–his total dominating way, the way he gets off. He
doesn't care if she wants to be involved or not." But again, this doesn't match up with the quote that he presents in quotation marks.
Unfortunately, the claim
that they "often identify with the rapist and abuse their own children"
is not, as far as I can tell, in the article--though I will admit to
skimming outside of the cited page. The article concerns work with one
person, and I did not even see a statement that she abused her child
outside of on page 798, that "when they [husband and child] would not or
could not respond as she desired, she repeatedly erupted in rage"--but
no statement it was anything physical. Further, the woman at question was raped at
the age of 17, which I would not count as a "young girl" though that is admittedly subjective. Simply put, a single case of someone who was raped that I do not believe was stated to abuse anyone is not actual proof of deMause's claim. Unless only the quotation was supposed to be what he was providing proof for, in which case he really should have given a source for it.
Thus
the sexual assaults on young girls fed their abusive assaults upon
their children when they became mothers. So, too, the extraordinarily
traumatic genital mutilation of little girls that was so common around
the world for so long was passed on as severe abuse to generations of
children.24
24 Patricia Raya, “Female Genital Mutilation and the Perpetuation of
Multigenerational Trauma.” The Journal of Psychohistory 37(2010): in
press.
MOSTLY TRUE. Having looked through the article, I do not see much that supports this. The article is mostly about trauma caused by female circumcision. It is only in a brief part near the end that it suggests that the trauma itself is what caused this practice to be passed down for generations. But this portion is rather speculative--a more plausible explanation, it seems to me, would be that it's simple tradition that keeps going rather than the effects of trauma. But even if we accept it as accurate, we run into a rather obvious problem: deMause is talking about the effects Christianity has had, but female circumcision has historically been a rarity among Christians. Thus it is not particularly relevant to his point. Nevertheless, the source does touch on it, so I decided to give it a Mostly True.
And that ends our examination. It is
ironic that he begins his next paragraph with "You will not discover
most of these horrible aspects about Christian misogyny from the
hundreds of books written on medieval Christianity, since most of the
authors are both male and believing Christians, and idealize
Christianity regularly." Perhaps we will not find it from those
books--but as we've discovered from our trawl through his sources, we won't "discover" it from the books he has offered so far
either.
Indeed, this claim of authorial bias on the part of historians doesn't
actually make that much sense, because many of those Christian
historians were Protestants. An argument that during the medieval period
all these horrible things were happening would be beneficial to
Protestant arguments, as they could try to argue that it's all the fault
of the Catholic Church getting away from true Christianity and that's
why the Protestant Reformation was correct. Certainly, they would not
have a real bias against the idea of Christianity in the medieval period
being warped. Thus this argument of deMause's does not hold water.
THE CONCLUSION
Here is the final count:
Pants on Fire!: 1
False: 6
Mostly False: 6
Half-True: 4
Mostly True: 3
True: 4
Anyway, as we can see, deMause is hardly accurate in representing his
citations--more than half of these are Mostly False, False, or Pants on
Fire, meaning he's wrong more often than he's right. I will admit the
ratings are subjective, but even if you bumped all of them up 1 slot
you'd end up with most of them being half-true or worse.
And there are some pretty big whoppers in there. He pulls forward a quote supposedly from the Bible that is not only not in the verse he claims it is, but isn't in the Bible at all. He takes an account from the 20th century and presents it as if it's from early Christianity. He takes a statement about men's attitudes towards rape in 18th/19th century pamphlet literature and presents it as if it's about men's attitude towards real life rape in the medieval period. He seems to have some kind of phobia of providing primary sources for quotes of past figures, instead only citing other people quoting them, leading to misattributions or quotes that do not seem to be real at all. He gives quotations that aren't actually found in the works he attributes them to, or edits them to make them more palatable to his claims. More could be listed, and anyone who wishes to see the full examination is free to scroll up and look at them if they have not already. Some of the errors he makes are just plain shocking.
And remember, this was for the most part simply an examination of how well he presented
his sources. It could very be well that the sources he utilized were
incorrect themselves, or he ignored sources damaging to his claims. If someone cannot be trusted to represent their chosen sources accurately, what confidence do we have that their choosing
of sources was accurate? Perhaps even those that I gave a "Mostly True"
or "True" to in regards to how well he represented them, were not
factually correct themselves.
It is possible that perhaps after these early parts of the chapter, suddenly everything changes, and all of his claims are perfectly backed up by his sources. However, I did look at a few out of curiosity, and to be honest his hit/miss ratio seems to be about the same. Similarly, it is possible that his other chapters do not suffer from the problems this chapter does (an examination of a few sources on another chapter, however, does not fill me with confidence). Or maybe just this one book is the problem, and other writings of his are accurate. But even if it's a small sampling, he misrepresents his sources so poorly and so frequently here that I feel everything else he writes should be viewed with suspicion.
Perhaps if I feel like it, I shall come back and investigate some more
of his citations... but for now, I feel this is sufficient examination. For my part, this examination has caused me to have little faith in the
accuracy of any of deMause's claims, whether expressed in this chapter
or other works of his. But in the end, the reader is free to draw whatever conclusions they wish based on my research. I make this available as a resource to save others the trouble of doing what I did.
Note: I have now gone and examined a lot more of the citations he offered in this chapter. You may read it here.
[Last updated 4-10-22]