>>3101
When did age of consent begin? The Holy Bible provides none, and european families were marrying girls to family members as young as they were born (and arranging them even earlier) if games like europa universalis and crusader kings are anything to go by.
For most of european history pedophilia wasn't a major deal, nor was incest, or bestiality, or any other sexual perversions, even homophilia was alright.
Females of any age were considered the property of males:
First of them being their fathers or another male family member who inherited them from their father.
If and when they got married they became the property of their husbands, who took ownership of her by marrying her.
In the husband's absence the male who inherits the property of the husband also takes ownership of her.
Women and girls were pretty much chattel slaves to men and (in some cases) boys, they were lacking any rights of their own.
So if she was raped it was not a personal crime committed against her, but instead a property crime committed against whoever owned her,.
Furthermore, her consent was never a legal consideration, the criminal could be charged for his sexual conduct with her even if the sex was entirely consensual between the two participants.
The "I consent x2 / I don't" meme was a reality under historical european law.
So the perversions of rape, incest, pedophilia, even necrophilia and cannibalism were non-issues, as any man (or boy) was free to do as he had pleased with his own property.
Bestiality was alright as well since animals had no rignts either, just as with women, so long as you arent sticking your dick into what belonged to another man without his consent, its all good.
Children often didnt have rights either, in many cases even boys were seen as the property of their fathers until they reached a certain age or criteria for being considered a man, though this was often making them a man at an age where our society would still consider them to be a boy.
Boys would be expected to bear more responsibilities than they would today, and to handle them to a degree that we would consider unthinkable of anyone at their age, they would work to earn money, and be permitted to engage in behaviors that we now consider to be exclusive to adults, such as drinking and even banging whores in some rare cases.
Now, keep in mind im most likely talking about older children here, but the same did apply to the younger ones to a leaser degree.
It was pretty much on a case by case basis, if they could do something, it was a wasted opportunity for them not to be doing it.
They would so the things that it was thought they could do. So thats why we had stories of young babes doing things like picking up a sword and then adults looked at the kid and said "righto, lets get him into basic training".
So then we come to homophilia, which was also acceptable with a few considerations.
If you were a man who wanted to bugger some poor boy, so long as you had an heir to continue the family lineage it was all fine, you could go off and be a fag all you liked.
Whether dykery was acceptable or not was at the discretion of the men who had ownership of the women involved, typically the men didn't give a damn.
Trannies didnt exist, at most there were crossdressers who did it as a personal recreation of theirs, they werent officially recognized as the other sex, if one were a male crossdresser they would want to be seriously considered as being a woman.
That said, professional crossdress was very common, most performers in plays who acted female characters were males actors dressed in drag.
Necrophilia was commonplace and frankly expected from anyone who worked in the death business.
For the common if you died and left a beutiful corpse behind you were literally fucked.
But for the noble there were specific precautions taken to deter the corpsefuckers that were likely in charge of handling your remains, bad ness was these weent always enough to keep your cadaver from getting molested post mortem.
Cannibalism was sometimes quite common in europe, especially during the periods where food was scarce, stories were told of armies that ran low on supplies resorting to eating the dead, both their own and that of their enemy.
Even outside of desperation, there was a lot of humanitarian gourmet going on, markets frequently sold products with human resources in the ingredients, and certain societies existed that would dine on dishes made with ingredients taken from dead bodies.
Also one could even decorate their home with mortal remains, sometimes the decor had an expected function which could be associated witb the occult, the hand of glory being a famous example.
Adultery was actually rife, most marriages at the level of nobility were areanged by the fathers of the pair, and expected to produce heirs, not love, so most of these couples would take lovers from outside the marriage, and this was expected from them.
To this end a noble family might see the perks in having a son whose a fruit, because his side peices would be of the same sex and thus not in any danger of producing bastard children that could threaten the family doen the line, though this could be a disadvantage if the family suddenly needs to scrape up an illegitimate heir in order to legitmize them.
Religion in those times was both taken more seriously and less seriously than it is today, most people never read the Bible and couldn't read to begin with, they received what little they knew from the priesthood and even that was often distorted by rulers who knew the power in controlling what people knew of their faith.
Dabbling in the occult was therefore popular and many of the thing which we consider to be sins today were ignored, this would explain why auch religious societies would tolerate all this perversion.
There were sins that were known and strongly felt about, but they would be things that today we dont feel even slightly as strong for.
Today its ok to be a protestant or catholic, but dont you dare screw a child or Gods wrath shall be visited upon you.
But back then it would be the opposite, the moral matter was placed on whether or not you recognized the authority of the pope or had your services delivered to you in latin - your child molestation was a nonissue by conparison, if it was recognized as being a sin at all.
Witchcraft was always something people looked out for and took very seriously, today any occult practice is seen as counting as witch working, but back then it was a very specific category that ruled out the little supernatural practices that were present among both the rich and poor.
Witchcraft was specifically the act of consprting with the devil, participating in using the secrets revealed to you by the lord of darkness to work hexes against the representitives of God on Earth, which could be some nobility or the common godfearing civilians.
Basicslly, the middle ages were debauched by moden standards, and even though they were more religious and took religion more seriously, they had less knowledge of their religion and cared about issues that most christians today wouldn't, while remaining unmoved by issues that modern christians are obssessed with.
This was a time when one's neighbouring country could easily become a threat at any time, anyone could be an agent of these enemies and so ideological conformity was the priority, crimes were usually pretty clear cut, something like murdering or stealing was swiftly and harshly punished, and other laws and punishments depended upon what the ruling power decided they liked or disliked. And of course there was the matter of taxes.
If you are the type of guy who looks back in history expecting to find your own sexual ethics vindicated, you might be disappointed.
Thought the jews do own academia, so they are likely telling us history was a lot worse then it actually was.
The facts I buy most are the ones that treat people in history as acting based on a rational thought around what was the best thing they could do in the circumstances they existed within.
History to me is a series if events where people encounter problems and then do the smartest thing they could think of to resolve those issues, only to encounter more problems down the line.
History will see those who took less than optimal courses of action die out, and the majority be held by those who took the most optimal decisions instead.
This who do what works best persisted and propagated their genes and memes, those who failed to do so did not.
I think people who look back at historical people and think them these irrational morons are poor historians with misconceptions not just of history, but also of human nature. Even poor choices that were commonly made can be argued to be good decisions by those living in their circumstances, because if that were not the case these actions or inactions would not have become the typical choice of the people living in those times.