Women and the History of Samuel Pepys's Diary | Hacker News Reader

Women and the History of Samuel Pepys's Diary

cambridge.org

33 pointspepys19 comments

If you haven't looked into it; it's fascinating. An upper middle class person writes a day by day diary for ten years or so. He includes everything, what he eats, what he earns, not to mention his sex life including his many infidelities.

It's long read though. Full text is here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4200

But! If you wait until january first 2023, you can participate in a joint day by day reading here: https://www.pepysdiary.com/about/

Plus he knew pretty much everyone at court from King Charles II down. You feel as if you also know them all personally after reading Pepys for a while.

And he freely used blackmail to extort sex from the wives of political dissidents.

I'm not sure which incident you are referring to, but Pepys was not a great human being in many ways. The fact that he revealed himself so deeply makes the diaries quite remarkable.

I remember when I first read Samuel Pepys's diary. What struck me the most is how insightful this man was and how organised his thoughts were. Incredibly aware of the political situation as well. It read so "modern", that it was at times uncanny.

A fascination with patrilineal descent continues to this day, despite the best intentions of TV shows like "who do you think you are". In striving to follow matrilineal stories, so much is hidden once you go back 150 years. Not (of course) in all cultures, but in many.

I find it remarkable at times, just how much IS preserved. The whole "shakspears second-best bed" story, is an example of the limits of what we know sometimes, yet we know Anne Hathaway had a cottage because land ownership in the UK is based on a linear sequence of title documents (back in some cases to 1066) -Had the more modern "Torrens title" model in Australia been extant, we might not know these things because its book of truth concerns itself with the proven current land ownership much more than with "how it got there"

When I bought my current house I had copies of the deeds dating back to the early 1800s (thy physical building dates from 1962, but I know there was a post office here before then from old OS maps). This isn't just a transcript, this is the original writing in the original style. OK it's only 200 years, but it's still interesting to see what was being written (formally) by normal people back then.

Not sure why it took me so long but I finally understood how land ownership is a peculiar thing (and at its core, almost always backed by someone who removed the previous inhabitants by force) when I considered "my dad bought his house in California from so and so, who bought it from so and so, who bought the land from so and so, who got it from.... oh."

Now that everyone puts their pronouns in their bio, the thing to do these days to show you are particularly inclusive and aware of your own privilege is to list the indigenous peoples whose land you live or work on.

Famous example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraEcNDGSqY&t=5m8s

Looks like it was plantations under Mary 1 in the 16th century...

I was at the opera last night seeing Don Giovanni and some of these excerpts from Peyps are fairly close to the behaviour of the titular villain. It's intriguing that recorded contemporary attitudes towards stories of sexual misbehaviour were typically tinged with amusement.

Excellent article over all. Although one minor criticism I have is that it toes the line in terms of almost judging historical figures by today's morals at certain points.

Questions, then, genuine interest in how you see this (not looking for flames).

What is wrong with judging then by the standards of now?

If we did as you seem to suggest and not judge, wouldn't that negate the ability to learn from past mistakes because you hinder recognition of those mistakes?

I suppose the danger is believing that we are substantively different to people who came before us, or that our current moral beliefs are correct. Our moral judgements may seem correct now but there's a good chance future generations will look back on us unfavourably too.

> I suppose the danger is believing that we are substantively different to people who came before us

genetically no, morally - well perhaps somewhat. Arguably. Maybe. Can you really rule it out?

> or that our current moral beliefs are corrector that our current moral beliefs are correct

We can be better without reaching perfection.

> Our moral judgements may seem correct now but there's a good chance future generations will look back on us unfavourably too.

I quite agree! Still, we can learn from the past and we should. You seem to be disagree that it's possible or meaningful to do so.

> Still, we can learn from the past and we should. You seem to be disagree that it's possible or meaningful to do so.

This might be a matter of perspective. The idea that humans haven't fundamentally (either morally or genetically) changed means that history cannot be discarded out of hand and is valuable. It can't be written off as being "different back then."

Did you leave before the part where Don Giovanni is thrown screaming into the flames of hell? Yes, they could laugh at sex, they could also get absolutely furious over it, and it wasn't necessarily in a court of law it got consequences. I think it was more than embarrassment Pepys sought to avoid by obfuscating these parts of his diaries.

I think Don Giovanni being thrown into hell is a narrative get-out-of-jail-free card being played. Most of the humour in the opera is derived from Giovanni's libido or shamelessness but giving him a comeuppance allows the audience to laugh at him instead of with him.

I recommend following him on twitter! https://twitter.com/samuelpepys

This account is also present on Mastodon for all the social media hipsters out there (like myself)

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