TL;DR: Nothing has changed in 2000 years. AWALT.


INTRODUCTION: Juvenal, a poet and comedian from the late era of the Roman empire, demonstrates the red pill is transcultural and nothing has changed in 2000 years.


BODY:

Juvenal, his Latin name Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, was a poet who lived in the 1st century and wrote 16 satires on various subjects ranging from friendship, education, and critiques of the police and military. He has fallen in and out of popularity over the centuries, thankfully preserved by the church monastic scribes. For TRP we're going to read satire VI, on women and trying to dissuade his friend Postumus from marrying (rather, you're going to read it after I pick a few passages to write about). He coined a famous phrase, so watch for it. You'll know when you see it.

I believe that Chastity lingered on earth in Saturn’s reign, and long-endured, throughout that age when a chilly cave offered a modest home, enclosed a fire, gods of the hearth, and the master and herd as well, in its communal gloom, when a wife from the hills made up a woodland bed with leaves and straw, and the pelts of wild beasts, her neighbors...

Juvenal opens with a lamentation for the "good old days" when women were still chaste and obedient to their men, back in the times of cavemen or hunter-gatherer tribes, and continues on to say that men and women were occupied with survival, unwashed and unkempt, and had no time for the luxury of debasement afforded by civilization. I think this is an inaccurate worldview as more than likely the days of the hunter-gatherer or early civilizations of man had hypergamous women running rampant, the top 40% of men banging all the women and the bottom 60% just existing. In fact most marriages in the ancient world were polygynous, with ancient Greece and Rome the exceptions, yet I find it curious our poet foregoes talking about the previous Grecian empire or the Babylonians or anything in the Orient but instead writes on a vague prehistoric era when women weren't prettied up, everyone was living in tight social groups, and there was no "safe" society to allow hypergamy to flex its muscles.

To set your neighbour's bed a-shaking, Postumus, and to flout the Genius of the sacred couch, is now an ancient and long-established practice.

Heh.

Nevertheless, in these days of ours, you are preparing for a covenant, a marriage-contract and a betrothal; you are by now getting your hair cut by a master barber; you have also perhaps given a pledge to her finger. What! Postumus, are you, you who once had your wits, taking to yourself a wife? Tell me what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to a she-tyrant when there is so much rope to be had, so many dizzy heights of windows standing open, and when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to hand? Or if none of all these modes of exit hit your fancy, how much better to take some boy-bedfellow, who would never wrangle with you o' nights, never ask presents of you when in bed, and never complain that you took your ease and were indifferent to his solicitations!

I had a chuckle at this. There is always a truth behind the joke, that it would be the wiser move to hang yourself or go for sweet boylove instead of marrying a woman. He continues that another friend approves of the then-current monogamous marriage laws and rights women had in them, and intends to have children, but he'll have to do without the finer things in life he has grown accustomed to. If he's going to search for a "good old virtuous sort" of wife, he had best go get his blood letted (because he is obviously ill). If he does manage to find such a woman, offer up a sacrifice to the gods and pray.

But will Hiberina be satisfied with one man? Sooner compel her to be satisfied with one eye! You tell me of the high repute of some maiden, who lives on her paternal farm...I will believe in your paternal farm, but will anyone tell me that nothing ever took place on a mountain side or in a cave? Have Jupiter and Mars become so senile?

And on and on, instilling fear into the reader that there is no chaste woman, you cannot distinguish between the maiden and the whore by sight, and they do not swoon over you but the lyricists, the singer, the theatre actors (the alphas). Watch as these "chaste maidens" tingle over their performance. If you marry them, it's possible the musicians or actors will become fathers. He says she will feel no shame abandoning her children and home to run to a lover that gives her the tingles.

Here I disagree, a woman would never give up her security and especially not her children just for a lover, but she is greedy and will have both. In pursuit of the tingles I've had a woman for years that would reschedule her work, drive to meet me, fuck me, pay for my dinner, and be the sexually aggressive one. All behind her husband's back:

For a husband to order his wife on board [a] ship is cruelty: the bilge-water then sickens her, the heavens go round and round. But if she is running away with a lover, she feels no qualms: then she vomits over her husband; now she messes with the sailors, she roams about the deck, and delights in hauling at the hard ropes.

And what if you're not going to marry but instead be devoted to one woman?

If you are honestly uxorious, and devoted to one woman, then bow your head and submit your neck to the yoke. Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment and plunder him. So the better the man, the more desirable he be as a husband, the less good will he get out of his wife. No present will you ever make if your wife forbids; nothing will you ever sell if she objects; nothing will you buy without her consent. She will arrange your friendships for you; she will turn your now-aged friend from the door which saw the beginnings of his beard. Panders and trainers can make their wills as they please, as also can the gentlemen of the arena; but you will have to write down among your heirs more than one rival of your own.

Marriage in Rome was one of the few monogamous marriages in the ancient world. My very light reading into the subject tells me only the Grecian and Roman civilizations had monogamous marriages. All others allowed the elites to marry multiple wives. The later eras of the roman empire showed women gradually gaining more power in marriage; originally it had the woman subjected to her husband entirely, but gradually changed to give women more autonomy. They still were granted the social status of their husbands, and typically outlived them (unsurprising in an era of constant warfare and humouristic approach to medicine). Marriage nearing the end of the Roman empire was not too distant from the current Marriage 2.0: either spouse could divorce for any reason at all (equivalent to 'no-fault' divorces today), and if the reason for divorce wasn't adultery the woman was returned her dowry. Children often went with their mothers in divorces more often than not. The idea of child support or alimony didn't exist at the time, and children were taken care of by the mother, who quickly remarried or returned to her family.

But whence come these monstrosities? You ask; from what fountain do they flow? In days of old, the wives of Latium [the place where Rome was founded] were kept chaste by their humble fortunes...We are now suffering the calamities of long peace. Luxury, more deadly than any foe, has laid her hand upon us, and avenges a conquered world.

Back to the beginning. The days when the need to survive kept women in line are gone and peace takes its toll on civilization. Without an external foe to fight a kingdom will crumble when the population becomes debaucherous, the men at the top of the heap receive most of the women and wealth while the rest are left to squabble over the bottom-rung whores and undesirable women. The roman empire fell to Germanic tribes from the north plundering trade routes, but couldn't be bothered to stop them. Communication broke down, supplies and military aid didn't arrive and people are thrown back to survival mode. The empire shrinks and land changes hands until no more empire exists and life goes on.

I know well the advice and warnings of my old friends: "Put on a lock and keep your wife indoors." Yes, and who will watch the watchmen? They get paid in kind for holding their tongues as to their young lady's escapades; participation seals their lips. The wily wife arranges accordingly, and begins with them.

In other words if your woman wants to cheat, rich or poor, she will find a way.

The satire concludes on the jealousy of a wife, or women in general. She will hate any other women you have, and will poison your concubine and her illegitimate children, and possibly you her husband. When confronted she will gladly admit to it, citing her inflamed passions. "I did the deed; I gave [poison], I confess it, to my own children; the crime was detected, and is known to all; yes, with my own hands I did it." What, you most savage of vipers? you killed two, did you, two, at a single meal? "Aye, and seven too, had there chanced to be seven to kill!" Realistically a woman isn't going to poison you and your other plates unless she's full on bunny-in-the-pot crazy, but eventually she will demand exclusivity and commitment from you.


CONCLUSION/LESSONS:

Juvenal's satires were never popular during his lifetime and were only read long after the fact because it was uncomfortable reading. His writings were likely preserved because the Church viewed them as an attack on pagan Rome, and an academic, historical distance makes a good shield against the hard truths they hold.

AWALT, AF/BB, solipsism, don't get married, pick something on the sidebar and it's applicable. Juvenal knew it 2000 years ago, we know it today: women are hypergamous, fickle, emotional children in grown bodies. Nothing has changed and nothing will any time soon. Don't lament over how things were 60 years ago or what could have been: these are the "good old days." You are here, so you're trying to improve your SMV so you can fuck bitches and get money. Women put out at the drop of a hat for the alpha and demand nothing in return. Most women are garbage to be used and disposed of. One day maybe they'll wake up and realize what third-wave feminism has done to them, and we can have our monogamous relationships and proper marriages in the next "empire." Even if Rome falls within your lifetime, enjoy the trainwreck.


Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenal - Wikipedia

For a more colorful post I've taken several translations and pieced them together. You can read both translations here: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_06.htm http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/JuvenalSatires6.htm

More reading, which gives excellent insight to the context behind the satire and additional perspective: http://purplemotes.net/2014/07/13/juvenal-satire-6/