Latest / Ridiculous History / Weird Courtship Rituals, Part One

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Weird Courtship Rituals, Part One · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so very much for tuning in. This is a very
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Speaker 1: special two part episode. We couldn't be more Over the
0:38
Speaker 1: moon and shout out to our super producer, the one
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Speaker 1: and only Max Williams. I'm ben uh No, you know,
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Speaker 1: we're well. I would say that we're not the worst,
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Speaker 1: worst people when it comes to dating right there. No,
0:56
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not the worst historically because that's what
0:59
Speaker 1: we talked about here. Um. But also I gotta comment
1:01
Speaker 1: be your excitement level. I think it is like two
1:04
Speaker 1: clicks higher than it usually is, and I think it's
1:06
Speaker 1: for a good reason. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm trying to
1:09
Speaker 1: I'm trying to come in hot because we have we
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Speaker 1: have some special guests on the show today. You and
1:15
Speaker 1: I have talked about our good friends on Ridiculous Romance,
1:20
Speaker 1: which is the next step in what we're calling the
1:22
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Universe. And there you are, you the extended Ridiculous Universe,
1:30
Speaker 1: and we are we are excited today because we're talking
1:34
Speaker 1: about weird courtship rituals, the course of love. It said,
1:39
Speaker 1: never did run smooth, but it got pretty much derailed
1:44
Speaker 1: multiple times, and it can definitely run weird. It doesn't
1:47
Speaker 1: run smooth, but it definitely runs weird. And we are
1:50
Speaker 1: joined today to our mutual delight by Diana and Eli
1:55
Speaker 1: from Ridiculous Romance. Welcome than having us so awesome to
2:05
Speaker 1: be here. Thanks for being here. We've got a max.
2:09
Speaker 1: Thanks for putting in that applause que as well. That
2:13
Speaker 1: was a cute. Yeah. See behind the curtain, we don't
2:16
Speaker 1: hear that now, but it's there as though it was
2:19
Speaker 1: always meant to be. It's sort of like Jack Nicholson
2:21
Speaker 1: and the Overlook. He's always been there the whole time.
2:24
Speaker 1: So I'm just conditioned to hear thunderous plause when I
2:27
Speaker 1: hear my names, so I just hear it anyway. I
2:29
Speaker 1: didn't realize it was coming from the outside. That's a
2:32
Speaker 1: good survival instinct in comedy. I think modesty. Modesty is
2:36
Speaker 1: a very important comedy instant. Elis always telling me, because
2:41
Speaker 1: we've known each other for number of years, he's always said,
2:43
Speaker 1: I am he is the most modest person that will
2:45
Speaker 1: ever meet, And it's probably true. It's one of my
2:48
Speaker 1: greatest traits among many yes yes to the big one.
2:53
Speaker 1: Uh so, so, Diana Eli, could you all tell us
2:58
Speaker 1: a little bit about Ridiculous Romance and what it is,
3:02
Speaker 1: how it came together in some episode you really enjoy. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
3:07
Speaker 1: Oh well I can start if you want to do it. Well,
3:10
Speaker 1: let's see. So ridiculous Romance was an idea that initially,
3:14
Speaker 1: Ben you came to us with uh in talking about
3:16
Speaker 1: wanting to expand the ridiculous universe, and you said, hey,
3:21
Speaker 1: you guys are a married couple. You've done sketch comedy
3:23
Speaker 1: together for many years. We have work together in creating
3:28
Speaker 1: and comedy and all kind of stuff as long as
3:30
Speaker 1: we've known each other, even longer than a little bit
3:33
Speaker 1: longer than we've been dating. And now we've been a
3:36
Speaker 1: little just a little bit, only a few years and
3:38
Speaker 1: then uh and now we've been married for three almost
3:42
Speaker 1: four before going on five years. Now, Oh my god,
3:49
Speaker 1: is this? Can this marriage last? We've been together for
3:54
Speaker 1: thirteen years, so hopefully it's all just been a big,
3:58
Speaker 1: beautiful blur, that's what it is. So we decided that
4:02
Speaker 1: we should put our comedy stylings in our romantic history
4:06
Speaker 1: to to good use and dig through history and find
4:10
Speaker 1: other bizarre, strange, random, freaky, awesome couples and uh and
4:19
Speaker 1: tell their stories uh in our in our trademark ridiculous way. Well,
4:23
Speaker 1: and at first we were like, well, I don't know
4:25
Speaker 1: this one. Seems like it would be hard to find
4:28
Speaker 1: enough couples to make an episode of making a whole
4:31
Speaker 1: year of episodes. And then we looked it up and
4:33
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, actually no, Oh my god, Wow, people
4:36
Speaker 1: are crazy. So there's been so many great stories so far,
4:41
Speaker 1: and we have so many more to get to. It's
4:43
Speaker 1: it's gonna be awesome. I'm not gonna lie. I'm actually
4:45
Speaker 1: a little jealous because Ben and I arbitrarily placed a
4:48
Speaker 1: rule on Ridiculous History where we only do shows like
4:51
Speaker 1: leading up to apartheid or topics leading up to apartheid,
4:55
Speaker 1: because we had a top the line line. I know,
4:58
Speaker 1: it seems weird, but it was because there was one
5:00
Speaker 1: picular topic about like this guerrilla that that did a thing.
5:03
Speaker 1: He like, I think he caught a criminal in South
5:06
Speaker 1: Africa that was running away from the authorities during apartheid, um,
5:10
Speaker 1: and that was in like ninety three or ninety four,
5:13
Speaker 1: and we both thought it was remarkable that a historical
5:16
Speaker 1: event as epic and meaningful as apartheide happened in the nineties,
5:20
Speaker 1: so we were like, you know what, this is the
5:23
Speaker 1: this is the cut off from us. But y'all go
5:25
Speaker 1: a little more recent than that, because honestly, history is
5:28
Speaker 1: being written as we live. As Ben says, it would
5:31
Speaker 1: be considered us something of a palem test right that.
5:35
Speaker 1: Yet the word I like that, it's Bend's word, trademarked.
5:38
Speaker 1: It's a good one. So I say this all of
5:41
Speaker 1: this to say that your most recent episode is one
5:43
Speaker 1: that I'm excited to listen to about Sid Vicious and
5:45
Speaker 1: Nancy Sponging I've uncovered. Yeah, well, I assure you will
5:52
Speaker 1: have some people writing into you to tell you how
5:54
Speaker 1: you pronounced it incorrectly. But it's, like you say in
5:58
Speaker 1: the description for the show, sort of a weird punk
6:02
Speaker 1: rock Romeo and Juliette story for the Ages that ends
6:05
Speaker 1: very very poorly, uh spoiler alert. But um, it's it's
6:10
Speaker 1: one that I'm excited to listen to. It's a very
6:12
Speaker 1: intense episode that was that was a difficult one to
6:14
Speaker 1: research because they are both such tragically horrible, miserable people.
6:19
Speaker 1: As we did nothing but bad things almost the whole
6:21
Speaker 1: time individually to each other exactly. You're kind of piste
6:25
Speaker 1: out on the whole episode, like what are you doing?
6:28
Speaker 1: Good lord? It's like when you see the woman in
6:30
Speaker 1: the horror movie that keeps running up the stairs. No one,
6:37
Speaker 1: good choice, please, A single one is fine. Yeah, it's
6:42
Speaker 1: right up there with the person who hears a noise
6:44
Speaker 1: in a horror movie and goes, what is that? Who's there?
6:48
Speaker 1: That's if we're speaking of poor choices, But you guys
6:51
Speaker 1: have made some really excellent choices in your show and
6:54
Speaker 1: peek behind the curtain. I think we told you all this,
6:56
Speaker 1: but not on air, so we'll go forward with it.
7:00
Speaker 1: Noel and I got together after listening to some of
7:03
Speaker 1: the first episodes and had a little bit of a
7:06
Speaker 1: dark night of the podcast soul. We actually went and
7:10
Speaker 1: we actually went and got some beers together. We're like,
7:13
Speaker 1: is there a show? Are they funnier than us? And
7:18
Speaker 1: we were, we were, we were worried, And then you know,
7:21
Speaker 1: to three beers later, we're like, it'll be fine as
7:24
Speaker 1: long as they don't do an episode on our relationship,
7:27
Speaker 1: and then two or three beers that are like, no, no,
7:28
Speaker 1: we're definitely funny here. It's not a competition, it's not,
7:33
Speaker 1: but it's where it's two different shows. Um, you guys
7:36
Speaker 1: definitely are able to venture maybe into the more raunchy
7:40
Speaker 1: side of things, especially as romance is concerned. I mean,
7:43
Speaker 1: you're gonna get into some raunch. It really does, yes,
7:47
Speaker 1: sometimes more than others. Raunchiest episode yet so far. Oh well,
7:52
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on who you are. Yeah, yeah,
7:58
Speaker 1: Vanilla ice cream. Yeah, mean we had we did, like um,
8:01
Speaker 1: William Marston and his and Elizabeth and Olive and they
8:06
Speaker 1: kind of had like a polyamorous thing going on with
8:09
Speaker 1: like some bondage action and they invented wonder Woman and
8:12
Speaker 1: all of that is kind of wrapped up in her character.
8:15
Speaker 1: So that was kind of run and yeah, that's true.
8:20
Speaker 1: But Evelyn Nesbit, Harry Thaw, Stanford White one had a
8:23
Speaker 1: lot of nasty sex cult type sex club I guess
8:27
Speaker 1: I should say, rather than a cult, but it's like
8:28
Speaker 1: a yeah, hot sex club action from the turn of
8:31
Speaker 1: the century. So you will learn those stories in full
8:37
Speaker 1: and even when they're heavy topics, you've got the that
8:42
Speaker 1: inn all ridiculous guarantee that you'll still you'll still have fun,
8:46
Speaker 1: you'll still learn something I particularly love the re enactments
8:50
Speaker 1: you all do. Not to not to put you on
8:52
Speaker 1: the spot today, but we uh, we were working on
8:57
Speaker 1: weird ideas, ostensibly weird ideas of courtship throughout human history,
9:04
Speaker 1: and so Nolan I decided that we needed to go
9:08
Speaker 1: to the experts, uh, which which meant that we are
9:13
Speaker 1: We wanted to uh lean on you alls expertise because
9:17
Speaker 1: we know that already you found so many, so many strange,
9:20
Speaker 1: surprising things like you just blew my mind at least
9:24
Speaker 1: about romance in the world of pirates. Uh So we thought,
9:30
Speaker 1: who better to help our fellow ridiculous historians explore the
9:35
Speaker 1: trials and tribulations of dating and marriage or trying to
9:39
Speaker 1: get married, then Diana and Deli, the host of Ridiculous Romance.
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Speaker 1: I wish that we could just publish our group thread
9:48
Speaker 1: for this episode, because nol I think it's fair to
9:52
Speaker 1: say that all four of us were just firing on
9:55
Speaker 1: all pistons with some great ideas. We kept thinking like, Okay,
9:58
Speaker 1: we've got a gotta trim these down. Yeah, oh yeah,
10:03
Speaker 1: they were definitely pistons involved. I do have to say
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Speaker 1: researching this was kind of fun because when you Google. Uh,
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Speaker 1: strange courtship rituals. You get a lot of stuff about
10:13
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. Um, it kind of comes up first
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Speaker 1: and foremost, so we had to dig a little deeper
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Speaker 1: in our googlins. But um, what say you we lead
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Speaker 1: off with Diana. You found a particularly fascinating, ridiculous courtship
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Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about right now. Yeah, I went.
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Speaker 1: I went for the Puritans because you know, they're so prudish.
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Speaker 1: I was kind of like, surely they have some weird,
10:43
Speaker 1: you know, awkward stuff that would be fun people to
10:48
Speaker 1: actually banned Christmas. Banned Christmas. They thought it was pagan
10:55
Speaker 1: well missiles, very pig and well anyway, but they actually,
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Speaker 1: um I was surprised to learn, didn't have anything anything
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Speaker 1: against sex at all. It was just it had to
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Speaker 1: be within marriage. But they really wanted you to be
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Speaker 1: sexually compatible because then you would go forth and multiply
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Speaker 1: and you know, bring forth a lot more Christians and Puritans.
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Speaker 1: And so they were actually had quite a few rituals
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Speaker 1: that kind of allowed you, in their very strict way,
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Speaker 1: to get to know each other and kind of like
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Speaker 1: flirt a little bit and figure out if you actually
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Speaker 1: liked each other. And so there were a couple of
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Speaker 1: these that I thought were so fun. For example, the
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Speaker 1: courtship tube is this sort of a hole in the
11:38
Speaker 1: sheet kind of situation. The kind of it's it's like, say, you,
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Speaker 1: you know, you're very interested in in me, goody Proctor,
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Speaker 1: and you want to come over to my house and
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Speaker 1: and see if maybe we have something to do with
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Speaker 1: each other. And in a Puritan house, it's very small.
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Speaker 1: You have your whole family in the same room with you,
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Speaker 1: and you if you come over to see a girl,
12:02
Speaker 1: Grandma's going to sit in between y'all. So it's not
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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about y'all, but I would
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Speaker 1: be not interested in being sexy. Unlet's that's the thing,
12:15
Speaker 1: you know, we'll describe the grandma. Depends on the grandma,
12:19
Speaker 1: depends on the grandma. Um. So what they would do
12:23
Speaker 1: if they wanted to have a private conversation was bust
12:26
Speaker 1: out the six to eight foot long talking tube. Basically
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Speaker 1: that they could put on each other's ears, even behind
12:34
Speaker 1: Grandma's back, so they could whisper at each other like
12:36
Speaker 1: a tin can phone situation. Right, I was like great
12:42
Speaker 1: COVID protocol. First of all, where where was this last
12:46
Speaker 1: year I could have been I think we call that
12:49
Speaker 1: the internet is what we call right, what is it
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Speaker 1: called the romance tube? I don't know when or the
12:57
Speaker 1: recording stick either way, but it's stick to me. Doesn't
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Speaker 1: seem like it's hollow. Well true, that's a good point. Uh,
13:06
Speaker 1: maybe it is made of bamboo. I doubt it because
13:09
Speaker 1: there was in New England. What I love is the discretion.
13:13
Speaker 1: You know, Grandma will never know sling this six ft
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Speaker 1: stick behind. Admittedly Grandma's hearing is going a little bit,
13:20
Speaker 1: so probably a good whisper would have done the trick.
13:23
Speaker 1: But I love the ritual of this, and that's sort
13:25
Speaker 1: of the the red thread. And in this two part
13:28
Speaker 1: episode is the is these rituals. It becomes a little
13:31
Speaker 1: more like almost rather than functional. It's got this kind
13:35
Speaker 1: of like ritualistic quality. So I think that's fascinating. Also
13:38
Speaker 1: in defense of the matriarch question here, uh it is
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Speaker 1: probably older, right, her amorous days maybe behind her. So
13:46
Speaker 1: there's there's a little bit of a possible like vicarious titulation,
13:50
Speaker 1: you know, because they could probably hear this stuff and
13:52
Speaker 1: they're like wounds talking about ankles. I wonder if there
13:57
Speaker 1: was any sort of like generational, like if the was
14:00
Speaker 1: a new technology. Grandma didn't understand kids these days with
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Speaker 1: their tubes. Back in my day, we wrote a lot
14:09
Speaker 1: of how common was this? I think it was pretty common.
14:14
Speaker 1: It was pretty common because this was the only way
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Speaker 1: to kind of get to know a girl more officially.
14:21
Speaker 1: I think they had surely some some less some more
14:25
Speaker 1: casual kind of like let's walk next to each other
14:28
Speaker 1: on the way to church maybe one day and chat.
14:32
Speaker 1: But if he wanted to come over and like make
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Speaker 1: his intentions known that he's like actually really seriously interested
14:39
Speaker 1: in this girl, I think they would pretty commonly have this.
14:42
Speaker 1: And I kind of wondered, like you, Eli, I was like,
14:44
Speaker 1: I wonder if they the tube got shorter over time
14:47
Speaker 1: and they'd be like five feet No, no, it's gotta
14:52
Speaker 1: be six to eight. Well, also like is the tube
14:55
Speaker 1: is the tube blessed by a member of the clergy?
14:58
Speaker 1: Is this a community tube is? Or a tube per household?
15:01
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, and one of that too
15:03
Speaker 1: is like does he bring the tube with him or
15:05
Speaker 1: is it already there and everyone has one? Is it
15:08
Speaker 1: also for like mom and dad to kind of be like, hey,
15:10
Speaker 1: when I get busy tonight or something like, I mean,
15:15
Speaker 1: how many potential romances were ruined because because you know,
15:20
Speaker 1: Elijah forgot his tube at Homelija com prepared. Man, how
15:25
Speaker 1: scandalous if you find that someone has reused the tube,
15:30
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, that's the same tube you
15:32
Speaker 1: had with Goody Walthrop, unclean, unclean. And then the other
15:39
Speaker 1: question would be like, uh is it. I wonder if
15:43
Speaker 1: they became heirlooms, you know, if there's some mother it's like,
15:48
Speaker 1: or some father who's like, I'm gonna pick on your eli.
15:51
Speaker 1: He's like, and I asked, my boy, I'm here, you know,
15:54
Speaker 1: at twelve now, and it's time you became a man. Yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: he is my courting tube and my rifle and us
16:06
Speaker 1: and the parts of the Bible I agree with go forth.
16:09
Speaker 1: Or the mom pulls it out from under the bed
16:11
Speaker 1: and it's like telling her daughter, like it was with
16:14
Speaker 1: this tube that your father first told me he loved me,
16:19
Speaker 1: the old tube. I can't wait till a boy uses
16:23
Speaker 1: a tube with me. I found my mom's tube when
16:27
Speaker 1: I get your tubes tied after that? So what Okay,
16:35
Speaker 1: So let's assume maybe that this this conversation goes really well.
16:40
Speaker 1: They managed to do their whatever. Yeah, yeah there, what's
16:45
Speaker 1: the guy snake from who always sneaks around in video games?
16:49
Speaker 1: Metal heavy Metal Metal Snake. He's just solid snaked. Okay,
16:55
Speaker 1: so they solid Snake the grandma and she did like
16:58
Speaker 1: literally really bad. Well, we managed to make it past
17:04
Speaker 1: courting stick without calling it to euphemism. So we're we're
17:07
Speaker 1: doing all right, We're doing and and and then they
17:15
Speaker 1: hit it off. They've got to like a lot in
17:17
Speaker 1: common or you know, they they revealed that they each
17:21
Speaker 1: like each other. Then I mean, what happens next? Like
17:23
Speaker 1: when do you how long do you tube it? Well,
17:26
Speaker 1: I don't actually know how long you would too, but
17:29
Speaker 1: as soon as you were like, oh yeah, I like
17:32
Speaker 1: tube and with this guy, I need to know more.
17:34
Speaker 1: I need to get I need to get further into
17:37
Speaker 1: this relationship. He would go to your parents and say,
17:40
Speaker 1: let's say, I'm I'm goody. I guess before she's goody.
17:45
Speaker 1: Really just for for the audience, goody was just a
17:48
Speaker 1: generic term for a woman. I think it means good wife.
17:52
Speaker 1: So I'm pretty good wife. I'm not a wife yet.
17:55
Speaker 1: I think you would say good like Mrs was gooddy. Um,
18:00
Speaker 1: it he proct her um. So yeah, if you're real
18:05
Speaker 1: into each other, he'd go to the parents and be like, hey,
18:07
Speaker 1: I'd kind of like to take this to the next level,
18:10
Speaker 1: and the parents were like on it. But again, you know,
18:13
Speaker 1: they all share personal space. There's not a lot of
18:15
Speaker 1: privacy in Puritan society. So what they would do is
18:19
Speaker 1: have you come over on a Saturday night, because a Saturday,
18:23
Speaker 1: you know, the night for flirting and forgetting it on.
18:27
Speaker 1: And so what they would do is they would put
18:30
Speaker 1: they would tie the girls ankles together and then put
18:34
Speaker 1: her in a sack and that tied at her waist
18:37
Speaker 1: or at her neck, and then they would put her
18:40
Speaker 1: in the sack in her bed, and then you, the boy,
18:44
Speaker 1: would have to be fully clothed, sometimes also put in
18:47
Speaker 1: a sack, but not always, And then you would get
18:50
Speaker 1: in the bed as well, and they would put a
18:52
Speaker 1: thick plank of wood in between the two of you
18:54
Speaker 1: and you would get to spend the night together. I'm sorry, no,
19:01
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta bring your own plank if you
19:03
Speaker 1: want to have a hole in. But this was really
19:06
Speaker 1: interesting because it sounds crazy. I mean I was like, uh, please,
19:09
Speaker 1: don't tie me up and put me in a sack.
19:11
Speaker 1: That sounds so claustrophobic. I'm so scared. And why are
19:14
Speaker 1: we sleeping in the same bed Before we even i
19:17
Speaker 1: mean kissed and stuff. So far we've been eight feet apart.
19:20
Speaker 1: I don't think we've held hands. Um. Apparently the idea though,
19:24
Speaker 1: was that you would get to know each other really well.
19:26
Speaker 1: You get a little time together, you know, hours of
19:29
Speaker 1: the night. You get to see if you actually wanted
19:31
Speaker 1: to wake up next to this person for the rest
19:33
Speaker 1: of your life. And they kind of expected like some
19:37
Speaker 1: handsy stuff to happen. They sort of expected you to
19:40
Speaker 1: kind of do some heavy petting, but the board was
19:42
Speaker 1: there so that you wouldn't actually get pregnant. Although apparently
19:45
Speaker 1: that was not super successful because in the seventeenth century,
19:50
Speaker 1: before they started this practice, which is called bundling by
19:53
Speaker 1: the way, uh, it was like ten percent of women
19:57
Speaker 1: were pregnant when they got married. And after they started bundling,
20:00
Speaker 1: it was so a lot of a lot of a
20:05
Speaker 1: lot of them just went ahead and anticipated their vows,
20:08
Speaker 1: you might say, and went ahead and took care of
20:10
Speaker 1: business in that bed. Probably wouldn't use it on our podcast,
20:19
Speaker 1: but but yeah, they they they were kind of like,
20:26
Speaker 1: at least if we if you get pregnant, if you
20:28
Speaker 1: mess up and you have sex, like you're not supposed to,
20:31
Speaker 1: wag wag um. We know who it is. There's a
20:34
Speaker 1: million witnesses who was over here last night? So you're
20:37
Speaker 1: getting married even if you didn't intend to. So it's
20:41
Speaker 1: kind of worked out pretty well. I guess we're all involved.
20:45
Speaker 1: But I don't know, do you guys want to sit
20:47
Speaker 1: fully clothe it in a bag next to you? Why?
20:51
Speaker 1: My question is why aren't clothes enough? Why do you
20:53
Speaker 1: need the extra layer of the bag? Clothes come off
20:56
Speaker 1: nor I thought the same. I guess it was just
21:00
Speaker 1: like you have so many layers, it's like two annoying
21:04
Speaker 1: was like a new technology at the time that mystified
21:08
Speaker 1: and confused people know it was It came from Ireland
21:13
Speaker 1: and rural UK societies and the Puritans brought it with
21:16
Speaker 1: them and they got very Apparently it enjoyed a little
21:20
Speaker 1: revival among Amish communities in the nineteen sixties and something,
21:24
Speaker 1: and like up until the nineties or something, they were
21:26
Speaker 1: doing it. I guess my thing is this like the
21:28
Speaker 1: dress you know we've been and I literally just did
21:31
Speaker 1: an episode on the history of underwear, and we know
21:33
Speaker 1: about this period, like the dress was very prohibitive in
21:37
Speaker 1: terms of getting it off, even us in the bathroom.
21:39
Speaker 1: So it just seems like a little extra to to
21:42
Speaker 1: insist on including this bag when you already you are wearing,
21:45
Speaker 1: like you know, your outer gear and then your shift
21:48
Speaker 1: or whatever that you have tucked in and it's very
21:51
Speaker 1: difficult to get off. It takes a lot of doing.
21:53
Speaker 1: So it's just it really speaks to the purity of
21:56
Speaker 1: the Puritans that they would insist on this extra layer
21:59
Speaker 1: uh of prohibitive you know, fabric between a man and
22:03
Speaker 1: a woman. Plus this board is a whole board, the board.
22:08
Speaker 1: We also have to remember that this is a little
22:13
Speaker 1: bit of speculation, but people at this time probably had fewer,
22:19
Speaker 1: let's say, outlets for their amorous impulses, and therefore we're
22:25
Speaker 1: a little more likely to be excited and go the
22:28
Speaker 1: extra mile, right to actually have a sexual experience. Yeah,
22:34
Speaker 1: and you would have to because to your point, all,
22:36
Speaker 1: you're not only wearing so many clothes plus a sack,
22:39
Speaker 1: plus blankets on the bed, plus a board, but also
22:43
Speaker 1: your whole family sleeps in the same room, So you
22:46
Speaker 1: got to be real quiet with all that wrestling you're
22:49
Speaker 1: gonna be doing if you don't want to wake up anybody.
22:51
Speaker 1: So the handsy stuff happens, and then they hear, just
22:54
Speaker 1: in the darkness the grandmother either say hold on, which
22:58
Speaker 1: is bad embarrassing, or nice, which is way worse. She's
23:04
Speaker 1: just like, I don't think he's the one for you, doll.
23:08
Speaker 1: He didn't really have a lot of funness, I could tell.
23:11
Speaker 1: The girl says, wait, wait, is there anyone awake? No?
23:16
Speaker 1: The chorus of no, no from the room way tougher
23:21
Speaker 1: than dating in uh well this, this is way tougher
23:25
Speaker 1: than dating in the modern age. I guess, yeah, yeah,
23:29
Speaker 1: but it is funny because yeah, right, I I don't
23:32
Speaker 1: want to deal with the sack. Either nobody tied me
23:34
Speaker 1: by the ankles or that just feels very confident. Somehow
23:40
Speaker 1: it's not not for me. I don't. I don't know
23:41
Speaker 1: why this makesically think of this, but for some reason,
23:43
Speaker 1: my mind goes to a very incredible passage of dialogue
23:47
Speaker 1: from the movie The Silence of the Lambs, where Hannibal
23:50
Speaker 1: Lecter is kind of trying to freak out Clarius and
23:52
Speaker 1: he says, all those clumsy, sticky fumblings in the backseats
23:56
Speaker 1: of cars. You know, it's like the Puritan verse of that.
24:00
Speaker 1: They're clumsy, sticky fumblings in the room with your grandma, right,
24:06
Speaker 1: and you foul. Okay, So now we're following this fictional
24:10
Speaker 1: couple and they've they've been having they've gone through their trials,
24:15
Speaker 1: you know, like a tray, you having to go through
24:16
Speaker 1: those three gates. Never in story. Yes, they got they
24:23
Speaker 1: got through the sack night swamps of sadness, the swamps
24:27
Speaker 1: of sadness, and they found one. Um, Dana, you found
24:31
Speaker 1: one one other. Almost uniquely puritanical courting practice, is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
24:38
Speaker 1: After you got hands e, after you tube all that stuff, Um,
24:43
Speaker 1: it's time to commit. So usually, you know, we would
24:47
Speaker 1: think you get a ring, you put a ring on it.
24:49
Speaker 1: But Puritans didn't wear jewelry. They thought that was real frivolous,
24:53
Speaker 1: and you know, they were very plain and not adorned,
24:57
Speaker 1: so they were like, jewelry is not our thing. So
24:59
Speaker 1: instead a Puritan man would give his intended goodie a thimble,
25:05
Speaker 1: and the thimble she would use and I guess dream
25:08
Speaker 1: over all her linens that she would sew in her
25:12
Speaker 1: clothes that she would sew for her new married life. Uh,
25:16
Speaker 1: and then on the on the day they got married,
25:18
Speaker 1: they would cut the thimble cup off and she would
25:20
Speaker 1: wear the rim as a wedding band. It's very practical.
25:24
Speaker 1: It's a very practical gift. Don't give it to me,
25:26
Speaker 1: but it's a very practical wedding ring if you've got
25:29
Speaker 1: a crafty girl in your life. Wait, so, okay, Like
25:32
Speaker 1: what you just shear off literally the bottom of this
25:35
Speaker 1: tiny thimble, presumably with some sort of metal like sheer, Like,
25:41
Speaker 1: how do you even do that? Yeah? I guess the
25:42
Speaker 1: blacksmith is at your wedding and he just brings brings
25:46
Speaker 1: a little weldern table with them or something I would
25:49
Speaker 1: like to like. Thimbles are pretty mall, A lot of them,
25:52
Speaker 1: I hope they. I mean, how do you guess while
25:55
Speaker 1: he's there, he like makes it, he like sizes it
25:58
Speaker 1: for you smaller back in the Puritan days, you know, less,
26:02
Speaker 1: less hormones in the milk over your thumb. It could
26:06
Speaker 1: probably slip around your ring finger, maybe because it only
26:10
Speaker 1: goes up to the first knuckle of your thumb. I
26:13
Speaker 1: don't know if that would get over the women notoriously
26:17
Speaker 1: huge thumbs. I was gonna say it's I read that
26:21
Speaker 1: in a scientific journal earlier. It's like the main like,
26:25
Speaker 1: that's why Puritans left England, right because they're huge hands. Yeah, yeah,
26:29
Speaker 1: they had their thumbs were like big toes and the
26:31
Speaker 1: rest of their fingers were normal. It's very weird pissed
26:35
Speaker 1: about that. It was like, I can tell a perodi
26:37
Speaker 1: from a mile way, what went we out into this
26:40
Speaker 1: wilderness to find acceptance for our overly large thumbs, Like
26:46
Speaker 1: the taste of that always our touch point for for
26:51
Speaker 1: Puritan chat is the witch live ach that would like
26:55
Speaker 1: to live thim maliciously thimously symbols. Just that's that's a
27:01
Speaker 1: great Hans Christian Anderson's story. Actually I believe that's correct. Yeah.
27:05
Speaker 1: So so this is first off, I feel like for
27:10
Speaker 1: anybody listening to this in the modern day apparently as
27:13
Speaker 1: opposed to anybody listening to this from the Puritan days, Um,
27:16
Speaker 1: this this is pretty instructive because, uh, it feels like
27:22
Speaker 1: the average person in you know what became the US
27:26
Speaker 1: probably has an easier time dating in general. Right, there's
27:30
Speaker 1: no sacks unless it's like a very specific consensual thing
27:35
Speaker 1: for that couple. Right, you can talk to people post pandemic,
27:40
Speaker 1: you can talk to people in person. I guess to
27:43
Speaker 1: that point about the Internet, there was definitely speaking to
27:46
Speaker 1: vibe as people are kind of pandemic dating. Um. But
27:50
Speaker 1: what so, how how long did this continue? I'm gonna
27:54
Speaker 1: have my mind, like I'm I'm quitting the show. If
27:57
Speaker 1: this is still happening in Boston, I'm lose my mind.
28:01
Speaker 1: Please don't know. I think I don't know about the
28:04
Speaker 1: thimble thing. I'm sure that got you know, tossed aside.
28:08
Speaker 1: When engagement rings and jewels rings started really popular, yeah,
28:13
Speaker 1: teramter beers, um. But as for bundling, it really went
28:18
Speaker 1: out of favor in like the eighteenth century. Um. They
28:21
Speaker 1: there was a lot of reverends who were like, this
28:24
Speaker 1: is so raunchy. You're letting the children have their sexual
28:30
Speaker 1: awakenings together and they are getting they are getting pregnant.
28:35
Speaker 1: And they had like a whole outrage. They wrote poems
28:37
Speaker 1: about working they were still getting pregnant. I'm confused. Well, yeah,
28:42
Speaker 1: because remember sometimes they would go ahead and do it
28:45
Speaker 1: and get That's why the number of Puritan women who
28:49
Speaker 1: were pregnant when they got married shot up to they
28:52
Speaker 1: would have their babies eight months instead of nine. And
28:54
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, because you went ahead and jumped that board,
28:57
Speaker 1: I guess. But this was this was sex for prokri asia,
29:00
Speaker 1: not for pleasure, Like sex for pleasure was right out,
29:03
Speaker 1: and this was absolutely functional sex to make more little Puritans,
29:07
Speaker 1: to put out the world, cause they come out fully
29:08
Speaker 1: formed like that with So they stopped this because tying
29:20
Speaker 1: them up in a sack, putting them in bed together,
29:22
Speaker 1: and putting a board between them was encouraging sex too
29:25
Speaker 1: much somehow, Yes, but it puts a whole new meeting
29:32
Speaker 1: to wood in bed. Yeah, Max, thank you for that.
29:47
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Whatever that was, So you worked
29:54
Speaker 1: on that? Did you work on that offer? No? No, Max, Ma,
30:00
Speaker 1: it would have been better if I worked right. So
30:04
Speaker 1: with this with this in mind, then, first, I don't
30:07
Speaker 1: know about you all, but I have definitely gained greater
30:11
Speaker 1: appreciation for what what Puritan couples had to go through.
30:15
Speaker 1: I mean, let's also, you know, not forget that they
30:17
Speaker 1: were doing this amid the constant threat of starvation, violence, disease,
30:22
Speaker 1: and possession. Yeah right, that's pretty pretty impressive. I mean
30:29
Speaker 1: with doctor in his side, you know. And I'll say
30:32
Speaker 1: the women wanted to keep bundling. The women specifically were like, uh,
30:37
Speaker 1: if we don't bundle, then we won't have any fun
30:40
Speaker 1: until our wedding day. And I was like, Randy Beard
30:44
Speaker 1: and ladies were like, let me get handsy. Before I
30:47
Speaker 1: thought it was the way around. I thought they wanted
30:48
Speaker 1: to protect themselves against hans Nous. But it's all it's
30:52
Speaker 1: all the It was all the male reverence who were like, oh,
30:54
Speaker 1: this is really too much for me, and the women
30:57
Speaker 1: were like, I like this. I like trying to figure
30:59
Speaker 1: out if I want to actually see this guy every
31:01
Speaker 1: single morning or if we you know, if we have
31:04
Speaker 1: no chemistry, if we if I he wakes up and
31:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, so sick of this dude after eight hours.
31:10
Speaker 1: Like it's nice to know there's actually an interesting parallel
31:13
Speaker 1: in the story that I'm going to do, which will
31:15
Speaker 1: save for for the next episode. But in terms of
31:18
Speaker 1: like this being somewhat progressive, would think that Puritans would
31:23
Speaker 1: be like, so it makes sense that like the reverence
31:27
Speaker 1: did eventually kind of walk it back. But for a time,
31:30
Speaker 1: I would argue, this is a pretty progressive sexually progressive,
31:33
Speaker 1: you know rich it was? It kind of was because
31:37
Speaker 1: again it went out of fashion when the idea of
31:40
Speaker 1: women being a sexual and pure and like we you know,
31:45
Speaker 1: sex is literally functional, we don't have any reaction to
31:48
Speaker 1: it at all, it's all for the baby part. That
31:51
Speaker 1: kind of ideal started to grow in the eighteenth century,
31:54
Speaker 1: so that's when it went away. I guess in this
31:56
Speaker 1: point they were still like, oh well, there's still human beings,
31:59
Speaker 1: and they have of, you know, a reaction to being
32:02
Speaker 1: rubbed up on. Some reverends like woman't control thyself and
32:08
Speaker 1: like I picture like the flappy arm inflatable. Yeah, car dealerships.
32:15
Speaker 1: Did you know those were invented for the Atlanta Olympics.
32:19
Speaker 1: What a weird thing, you like. They had to figure
32:22
Speaker 1: out what to do with them afterwards, you know. They
32:24
Speaker 1: made them like in this massive array, you know, which
32:26
Speaker 1: is probably a lot cooler than just a single weird
32:28
Speaker 1: kind of like dingy one that you see outside a
32:31
Speaker 1: used car lot. But I was recently clued into that fact.
32:34
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Strengthened numbers. That's that's how they work.
32:39
Speaker 1: I don't know why I said that, like their threatening.
32:40
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, honestly I did a sketch about that. I forgot. Yeah,
32:47
Speaker 1: I imagine that these reverends. The first reverend to have
32:50
Speaker 1: a real problem with it was a guy who got
32:52
Speaker 1: rejected after the girl was like the girl was like, oh,
32:57
Speaker 1: he's all thumbs. I'm not having it. He bungled the
33:01
Speaker 1: bundle and she was like, I'm not wasting this, Oh,
33:05
Speaker 1: the little bundle bungler Taylor's oldest. Well, Diana, thank you
33:09
Speaker 1: so much for for looking into this one and bringing
33:12
Speaker 1: this one to us. I think this is something that
33:14
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't know about, and uh, I have a
33:16
Speaker 1: feeling that others didn't either. Yeah, I was saying I
33:20
Speaker 1: was happy to learn about it because this was a
33:22
Speaker 1: new one for me too. I thought I was also,
33:24
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I thought it was all witches and
33:26
Speaker 1: burning and prayers and but no, they had sticks and stuff. Yeah,
33:31
Speaker 1: they had technology. And uh, I believe you may be
33:36
Speaker 1: able to see a cinematic reference to this and the
33:38
Speaker 1: mel Gibson vehicle The Patriot, where one of the yeah,
33:43
Speaker 1: one of the characters is you know, he's courting and
33:48
Speaker 1: the family really likes him and they're like, all right,
33:51
Speaker 1: we're sewing you into the bag. Yeah, nodding intensely with approval. Here,
34:01
Speaker 1: Max Will for the record, Dana and Eli Uh sit
34:04
Speaker 1: for an entire episode knowing a question that Nolan and
34:07
Speaker 1: I are fumbling with, only to tell us after the episode, like,
34:12
Speaker 1: you guys know, it's Pensacola, I'm making We were saying
34:22
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania the whole time. We sounded like a real asshole. Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 1: very far away And speaking of far away and awkward segues,
34:32
Speaker 1: why don't we travel to Mauritania next? This is a
34:38
Speaker 1: bit of a downer, but it's an important story that
34:42
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people aren't aware of, and
34:51
Speaker 1: we're returning with the host of ridiculous romance Diana and
34:55
Speaker 1: Eli Banks. Then did you just do an ad throom?
34:58
Speaker 1: I did? I think I did? Yeah? Yeah, is that
35:00
Speaker 1: our first one? I think it might be, Max says is,
35:03
Speaker 1: once again nodding intensely with approval. Yes, can keep doing them. Also,
35:08
Speaker 1: it would be really nice. Okay, Okay, never sorry, I'm
35:12
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. We're already improving the show for
35:15
Speaker 1: Mac at least. Okay, don't don't go too hard on
35:19
Speaker 1: the honor student vibe, you guys. Okay, I guess if
35:23
Speaker 1: we keep it up, we'll have to start wearing ties
35:25
Speaker 1: or something. But while we were on break and ridiculous historians.
35:29
Speaker 1: We hope you had a bully break as well. We were.
35:34
Speaker 1: We've left off right before we went to uh segue
35:38
Speaker 1: and our segue takes us to Mauritania and other parts
35:43
Speaker 1: of the African continent to a a controversial practice that
35:50
Speaker 1: more people should know about called l e b l
35:56
Speaker 1: o u h. It is also known as gavage. And
36:02
Speaker 1: we are lucky enough to have to have Eli here today. Eli,
36:06
Speaker 1: you have studied French bit in the past in your
36:10
Speaker 1: sketchier years, are you? Are you familiar with the synonym gavage?
36:14
Speaker 1: I am uh not no, well uh, by my sophomore
36:20
Speaker 1: year at college. It's a very specific one. It would
36:23
Speaker 1: be weird for your professor in college to have like
36:27
Speaker 1: lead with this word. It's the French term for force
36:31
Speaker 1: feeding geese to create fa ra oh. Yeah, and if
36:34
Speaker 1: any you know foodie's out there. I like a good
36:38
Speaker 1: fog gra as much as the next uh barbarian. But
36:41
Speaker 1: it is really truly a despicable practice. If you see
36:45
Speaker 1: videos of it, it's grow, it's gross, it's bad times.
36:48
Speaker 1: Um yeah, you really do have to do a little
36:50
Speaker 1: suspension of disbelief to truly enjoy some fua gras once
36:54
Speaker 1: you see the video, though, it's probably hard to ever
36:56
Speaker 1: go back. And actually, Ben, I can tell you the
36:58
Speaker 1: reason I didn't know that French word now that you
37:00
Speaker 1: mentioned it is because I'm a lifelong vegetarian and have
37:04
Speaker 1: to work that into every episode. And uh so I was.
37:08
Speaker 1: I was permitted to leave class before we talked about
37:10
Speaker 1: that one. No. No, but the lifelong vegetarian part is true. No,
37:16
Speaker 1: that's true, and I didn't believe it for like the
37:19
Speaker 1: first two years I knew Eli Banks, I thought I was.
37:24
Speaker 1: I was not to the level where I was one
37:26
Speaker 1: of those annoying people who was like, are you sure?
37:29
Speaker 1: You what about the oil? Are you sure? Because that's
37:32
Speaker 1: just so boorish. But but Eli, you once described this
37:36
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with anything. But you once described
37:39
Speaker 1: yourself as a French fry vegetarian because I asked you.
37:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but god, this must
37:45
Speaker 1: have been decade ago. Now. I was like, hey, man,
37:48
Speaker 1: you're healthy. How do I do that? No? No, no,
37:52
Speaker 1: no doubt. Being a vegetarian and being a healthy are
37:56
Speaker 1: not inherently linked. There a pizza and French fries or
38:01
Speaker 1: vegetarian and that was most of my age sixteen to eight.
38:06
Speaker 1: Probably when you say lifelong, was this because of your family, Like,
38:09
Speaker 1: did you literally grow up vegetarian like as a child.
38:12
Speaker 1: That's my mom started when she was a teenager and
38:15
Speaker 1: raised me and all my sisters that way. That's really cool.
38:17
Speaker 1: And my my dad is effectively vegetarian at home. He
38:21
Speaker 1: doesn't care. Certainly makes it easier for you than like
38:23
Speaker 1: making a switch, you know in your thirties. The way
38:26
Speaker 1: I have made to switch is my point. I am
38:29
Speaker 1: incapable of making the switch. I never would have. Yeah,
38:33
Speaker 1: it's tough, but this also to set the record straight.
38:37
Speaker 1: Uh Eli's old band is definitely not a vegetarian. That's
38:40
Speaker 1: an awkward step I had one time. We're out there,
38:44
Speaker 1: but but why are we talking about food? Why are
38:47
Speaker 1: we talking about controversial food practices. It's because of a
38:50
Speaker 1: practice that dates back to the eleventh century. Uh It's
38:54
Speaker 1: primarily known in rural areas of Mauritania, but it occurs
38:58
Speaker 1: in Sudan, in Uganda, it occurs in Nigeria, Tunisia, a
39:02
Speaker 1: lot of places, and it is a practice wherein as
39:08
Speaker 1: part of the path to marriage and courtship, young women, girls,
39:15
Speaker 1: children from the age of five to nineteen are force
39:19
Speaker 1: fed because in some of these communities, obesity is typically
39:25
Speaker 1: regarded as a desirable trait, a body type of form
39:30
Speaker 1: of wealth that I would be cool with that. Well, well,
39:34
Speaker 1: god knows, you know. Um, I don't think it's a
39:37
Speaker 1: controversial statement that Puritan times, in the in the in
39:42
Speaker 1: the eleventh century, pretty much anywhere you look across human history,
39:46
Speaker 1: there's some dudes trying to control women's bodies right one
39:49
Speaker 1: way or another. They're like, they're like, hey, it's uh
39:52
Speaker 1: not like when we were talking about underwear recently, there
39:56
Speaker 1: was this whole thing of like, let's make your butt
39:58
Speaker 1: look like a big balloon kind of hidden by a
40:01
Speaker 1: long dress. Certainly, I mean the same way that it
40:04
Speaker 1: is today. A lot of those ideals of beauty and
40:08
Speaker 1: fashion are driven largely by the patriarchy. I mean that
40:12
Speaker 1: hasn't changed. I mean, it certainly has changed to some degree,
40:15
Speaker 1: but it's certainly still out there in terms of who
40:17
Speaker 1: controls advertising and who controls you know, the biggest fashion brands. Yeah,
40:24
Speaker 1: this is so, this process is um, it is a
40:29
Speaker 1: long term process, you know what I mean, It's not
40:32
Speaker 1: just one unpleasant weekend. The girls, specifically in Mauritania, are
40:36
Speaker 1: forced to swallow gallons of milk, loads of couscous peanut
40:41
Speaker 1: oil and then check this out. You'll love this. He
40:43
Speaker 1: like cups of pure animal fat. This. You can see
40:48
Speaker 1: his excitement. Uh, you make this a video show. So
40:51
Speaker 1: there's there's something crazy here if you look at the science. Uh,
40:57
Speaker 1: the one of the most reliable statistics can find for
41:00
Speaker 1: this is that about every twenty four hours, these people
41:05
Speaker 1: are being forced to consume on average, fourteen thousand to
41:09
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand calories. Jeez, it sounds like the kind of
41:12
Speaker 1: ritual like a method actor would use to fatten up
41:15
Speaker 1: for a role. Yeah, it's Christian Bale, hard at work.
41:19
Speaker 1: Maybe that's how he got started. I don't know, a
41:22
Speaker 1: story for another day, but I'm not sure if his
41:24
Speaker 1: activities are Mauritania. To be honest with you, but this
41:29
Speaker 1: is this is literally force feeding. Because some people, you know,
41:33
Speaker 1: do participate of their own free will. But if there
41:37
Speaker 1: is a young girl who refuses to drink the crazy
41:42
Speaker 1: amount of milk, like twenty liters of milk a day,
41:46
Speaker 1: then they get subjected to these various punishments. One of
41:49
Speaker 1: which is called toe squeezing. Oh god, I mean it
41:54
Speaker 1: seems like the description, but just let's hear it. Let's
41:57
Speaker 1: hear it. Then, Yeah, it's a there's this thing made
42:02
Speaker 1: of sticks that is pinched on the skin so it
42:06
Speaker 1: crushes the toes. This has, of course some echoes of
42:10
Speaker 1: the horrific practice of footbinding, but it's less permanent because
42:15
Speaker 1: they will be able to recover. Uh. The most common
42:19
Speaker 1: reason that children are forced into this is that the
42:24
Speaker 1: family believes this is the best way to ensure that
42:27
Speaker 1: their daughter is marriageable and has financial uh financial security,
42:33
Speaker 1: and that the you know, the courtine men of the
42:37
Speaker 1: community are able to will look at them and say like, oh,
42:41
Speaker 1: that's awesome. I guess you should get married. So is
42:46
Speaker 1: this something that starts when their kids or is it
42:48
Speaker 1: when like after puberty or like when are they starting
42:52
Speaker 1: to try to like fatten them up? Like it must
42:58
Speaker 1: start it pretty early, and it's it's more of a
43:00
Speaker 1: regiment like a diet than it is some sort of
43:02
Speaker 1: thing for public consumption, Like this isn't done with people
43:05
Speaker 1: watching where it's like a like a you know, eating
43:08
Speaker 1: competition or something. Right. So, yeah, there are older women
43:13
Speaker 1: who are called fatteners who are kind of the the
43:18
Speaker 1: head mistresses of this process, and they're they're private, like
43:23
Speaker 1: their private Yeah, it's not it's not a public spectacle.
43:27
Speaker 1: So at least people aren't getting around and you know,
43:29
Speaker 1: pointing and laughing and being like ha ha, drink more milk,
43:33
Speaker 1: which would just be insult to injury at this point.
43:37
Speaker 1: But the thing that's strange about this too is that
43:44
Speaker 1: the people who are subjected to this have about thirty
43:48
Speaker 1: fo higher odds of being married in this community because
43:54
Speaker 1: it is a in these areas, and of course this
43:57
Speaker 1: is not all of Mauretania, nor all of any of
43:59
Speaker 1: the other countries I mentioned. In this area, in these communities,
44:05
Speaker 1: the men will have this belief that a larger spouse
44:11
Speaker 1: will bear healthier children or have a higher chance of
44:14
Speaker 1: doing so, and so they're willing to pay a higher
44:17
Speaker 1: bride price for these people, or a dowry. I'm sorry,
44:21
Speaker 1: bride price. That's the first I've heard of that expression. Dowry.
44:25
Speaker 1: I know, bride price sounds very uh callous and kind
44:30
Speaker 1: of like transactional, but I guess that's what marriage was.
44:33
Speaker 1: I don't know why it sounds surprised. Yeah, it's a dowry,
44:36
Speaker 1: you know, is the same thing as a bride price
44:39
Speaker 1: is just a different word really from the same practice.
44:43
Speaker 1: So when when we look at this, we know that clearly, right, clearly,
44:48
Speaker 1: this can be linked to profoundly harmful physical consequences, including
44:56
Speaker 1: stuff like cardiovascular disease. But it's it's tough to trace
45:03
Speaker 1: the origins of it. But people believe that it dates
45:07
Speaker 1: back to uh the time when the majority of the
45:11
Speaker 1: population in modern day Mauritania was comprised of nomadic societies.
45:17
Speaker 1: And so because people were, you know, constantly on the
45:21
Speaker 1: move and maybe food insecurity was just a daily fact
45:24
Speaker 1: of life in a harsh environment, this would have been
45:27
Speaker 1: seen as um as a status symbol. Well, and they're
45:30
Speaker 1: also getting their steps in at least, you know, so
45:34
Speaker 1: that's that's a good thing. I you know, it's strange
45:38
Speaker 1: because when we read about these kind of things, it's
45:42
Speaker 1: all too tempting to say something like, well, you know,
45:45
Speaker 1: that's something for the dusty footnotes of history. People figured
45:49
Speaker 1: out the medical advantages to not force feeding their children.
45:54
Speaker 1: I'm sad report does not entirely the case in this uh,
46:00
Speaker 1: in this current age, there are still people who are
46:04
Speaker 1: forced to consume you know that sixteen thousand, fourteen thousand
46:08
Speaker 1: calories a day, which is more than four times that
46:12
Speaker 1: of a male bodybuilder or male identifying bodybuilder. Uh. And
46:16
Speaker 1: I wanted to I want to throw it, throw it
46:19
Speaker 1: to you all, like what what is the situation that
46:24
Speaker 1: it feels very patriarchal? Right like this this is now
46:28
Speaker 1: a symbol of my wealth or something right like this
46:31
Speaker 1: person um, But why do you think it persists? Well?
46:37
Speaker 1: I sort of have another question kind of along that
46:40
Speaker 1: line too, is is there an economic factor in this?
46:43
Speaker 1: Like this sounds like a lot of resources going to this.
46:46
Speaker 1: Is this something that only here families can afford? Is
46:49
Speaker 1: this something that you know, a substantial personal population wishes
46:52
Speaker 1: they could be part of and are left out of
46:54
Speaker 1: or vice versa. Yeah, that's that's a that's a good question.
46:58
Speaker 1: So there is a socio economy factor, because again it
47:01
Speaker 1: is it is seen as for the family of of
47:07
Speaker 1: you know, for like the daughter's family, and for the
47:10
Speaker 1: perspective groom, it's seen as a public statement that we
47:14
Speaker 1: are doing well right, and so it's kind of like
47:20
Speaker 1: it's just inherently identified with prosperity. And you can read
47:26
Speaker 1: you can read a lot of articles about this that
47:30
Speaker 1: give lie to the idea that it's an ancient practice.
47:33
Speaker 1: There's one in Marie Claire from two thousand eleven by
47:36
Speaker 1: Abigail Howorth that really hit home and I recommend reading
47:41
Speaker 1: it for anybody who wants to learn more. It goes
47:43
Speaker 1: into detail about the diet, about how the process begins. Uh.
47:49
Speaker 1: It is a sobering read. But you hear directly from
47:53
Speaker 1: some of these children, and you hear directly from some
47:57
Speaker 1: of the fatteners, and one of them, identified as El Hassan,
48:02
Speaker 1: definitely seasoned as a business. She makes a hundred and
48:05
Speaker 1: fifty five dollars every three months for each girl she
48:08
Speaker 1: forced feeds through the program, just like a force feeding
48:12
Speaker 1: doulah or like a force feeding kind of mystic or
48:15
Speaker 1: something that's so weird. Yeah, and uh she was the
48:22
Speaker 1: Some of the interviewers naturally asked the question like, hey,
48:25
Speaker 1: so I've eaten too much in the past. How do
48:30
Speaker 1: you force children to do this? And uh, El Hassan
48:34
Speaker 1: specifically says, quote, I'm very strict. I beat the girls
48:38
Speaker 1: or torture them by squeezing a stick between their toes.
48:41
Speaker 1: I isolate them, and I tell them that thin women
48:43
Speaker 1: are inferior. Is that the same as toe squeezing or
48:47
Speaker 1: is that something different? I think it's a variation on
48:49
Speaker 1: a theme, very toe oriented, can I say, And I
48:53
Speaker 1: think a lot of people know this, But Marie Claire
48:56
Speaker 1: excellent work, Like they're a source for my story that
48:59
Speaker 1: we'll do in the next episode. But they sort of
49:02
Speaker 1: turned a corner. They used to be sort of like
49:03
Speaker 1: kind of a fruit fru tween magazine, I think when
49:06
Speaker 1: we were younger. But they've actually done some really excellent
49:09
Speaker 1: journalism over the last maybe ten years or so, kind
49:12
Speaker 1: of like teen Vogue amazing or I'll see it. BuzzFeed
49:18
Speaker 1: News has done some good stuff. They did they got
49:22
Speaker 1: a pulitzer they yes, and like a tweet round up,
49:31
Speaker 1: like we can have it all. But here's another thing
49:35
Speaker 1: I thought, because this is a very serious thing and
49:36
Speaker 1: it needs more awareness. Um and you know, there's a
49:39
Speaker 1: whole conversation about cultural imperialism, right telling people uh not
49:45
Speaker 1: to practice their traditions or something. But there's also the
49:48
Speaker 1: importance of informed consent, and there's importance of protecting people's health,
49:52
Speaker 1: and they're right to choose what they want to do.
49:54
Speaker 1: One of my first questions I can't be the only
49:56
Speaker 1: one thinking this is Uh, how did the guys get
49:59
Speaker 1: all so easy? You know what I mean? What's that
50:02
Speaker 1: conversation like where they're like, we're fattening up our children
50:07
Speaker 1: to show how successful we are. And I'm marrying this
50:11
Speaker 1: person because she was forced to gain weight to show
50:14
Speaker 1: how successful I am. As nobody ever said like, okay, cool,
50:19
Speaker 1: what what what about? You wouldn't what would And when
50:24
Speaker 1: you said the guys get off so easy, in my
50:26
Speaker 1: mind went instantly to the gutter. And that's just guys
50:30
Speaker 1: for you, you know, it's just easier. Um, But no,
50:33
Speaker 1: it's true. And that's the thing we I mean, you know,
50:35
Speaker 1: you you really don't see many societies that put the
50:39
Speaker 1: same you know, um prohibitively ridiculous strictures on dudes as
50:44
Speaker 1: they do on women. You know. Um, It's a sad
50:48
Speaker 1: fact of humanity, it seems, but there it is. And
50:53
Speaker 1: younger people, for their part in Mauritania, are less into
50:59
Speaker 1: this actice less approving of it as time goes on.
51:03
Speaker 1: But there's still you know, one thing we know is
51:06
Speaker 1: the body image or what is considered attractive from one
51:09
Speaker 1: culture to the next, is not constant. Right there, have
51:12
Speaker 1: been uh errors of history where the sexiest thing you
51:17
Speaker 1: could have is like totally blacked out teeth and that's
51:20
Speaker 1: really solid unibrow or that still happens, the row is
51:25
Speaker 1: still for sure. I you know, I I make no judgments.
51:33
Speaker 1: I think there's nothing wrong with a with a good brow.
51:36
Speaker 1: But this, this gets us to this gets us to
51:40
Speaker 1: maybe where we start to sow up or bundle part
51:44
Speaker 1: of this episode because thank you it was you know
51:48
Speaker 1: segways callbacks, we got them all and sound effects back
51:53
Speaker 1: to hit us with what just rather is what gus?
52:06
Speaker 1: So this um, this issue is is something where you
52:13
Speaker 1: could argue that cultural imperialism can be harmful because if
52:18
Speaker 1: you ask people, you know, men or women, however they identify,
52:23
Speaker 1: like what what an attractive body type is, then you'll
52:28
Speaker 1: see cases where people are genuinely appalled by a female
52:34
Speaker 1: figure that they feel is too skinny. They say like, oh,
52:38
Speaker 1: they look sick or they look like they have liposuction,
52:41
Speaker 1: and it ranges to mockery. So it's it's tough to
52:45
Speaker 1: see how how to fix this, and I think it's
52:47
Speaker 1: an interesting counterpoint to what we hear often in the West,
52:54
Speaker 1: where so many kids, so many young women grow up
52:59
Speaker 1: feeling like they're not good enough because they don't have
53:03
Speaker 1: the you know, the typical like skinny or our glass
53:06
Speaker 1: body type. That's that's here. I don't I don't know
53:08
Speaker 1: what the solution is. Well, that's what I was about
53:11
Speaker 1: to say, because it would be like really hard to
53:14
Speaker 1: want to bring our thing about being thin and given,
53:18
Speaker 1: you know, bringing a whole other eating disorder, possibly to
53:21
Speaker 1: the to the people of this community and stuff by
53:25
Speaker 1: shoving our own unhealthy you know, body body shaming practices
53:30
Speaker 1: on them. And uh, I don't know. I just think
53:33
Speaker 1: that would be a hard line to walk, to be like,
53:36
Speaker 1: what's healthy, you know, depending on the diet of where
53:39
Speaker 1: you are, and like the climate. I mean, there's so
53:42
Speaker 1: many factors that affect how you develop over time as
53:45
Speaker 1: a as a community. I don't know, it would just
53:48
Speaker 1: be really hard to be like, let's send them some
53:51
Speaker 1: Marie Clayers and see what changes. Maybe look get into
53:53
Speaker 1: thigh gaps. All of a sudden, I'm like, oh, I
53:55
Speaker 1: don't want that. It's so interesting. You know, I have
53:58
Speaker 1: a twelve year old daughter, and I mean, you know,
54:01
Speaker 1: with the Internet and the kind of democratization of information
54:03
Speaker 1: and the availability of like literally every thing that's ever
54:06
Speaker 1: been out there throughout history. Um, it's still like so
54:11
Speaker 1: toxic the way body image is just pushed upon young
54:15
Speaker 1: girls in particular, and how trippy would it be to
54:17
Speaker 1: be like, oh, if only I were thirty pounds heavier,
54:20
Speaker 1: you know, and then for that. But at the same time,
54:22
Speaker 1: when you look at it on a long enough timeline,
54:24
Speaker 1: it really is just different strokes for different eras kind
54:28
Speaker 1: of you know, and it's like we associate skinniness and
54:31
Speaker 1: you know, all of this body and stuff as being
54:33
Speaker 1: that's of course what is attractive, but that can absolutely
54:36
Speaker 1: change depending on the culture and depending on the time
54:39
Speaker 1: that you're living in. And I think it ties into
54:42
Speaker 1: the image where I see people trying to break down
54:45
Speaker 1: now of ascribing one body type too healthy and and
54:50
Speaker 1: another body type to not, whereas that's going to be
54:52
Speaker 1: different per individual. I don't think force feeding anyone is
54:57
Speaker 1: going to be a healthy habit, no matter how you
54:59
Speaker 1: do it. But not there is, you know what, we
55:01
Speaker 1: kind of forced starved people here, and force any cultural
55:04
Speaker 1: way usually seems like a bit of a red flag. Yeah,
55:08
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the that's one of the biggest
55:10
Speaker 1: things because if it were something where it seemed as
55:13
Speaker 1: though the entire the entirety of community was kind of
55:19
Speaker 1: into it. Uh, and these children weren't like being beaten,
55:23
Speaker 1: being forced and then try literally trying to run away
55:27
Speaker 1: from these fattening camps. Then that would be that would
55:30
Speaker 1: be a different conversation. And I know that's you know,
55:34
Speaker 1: maybe not as not as funny as somebody squeezing an
55:40
Speaker 1: apple under their armpit for the entirety of a dance.
55:43
Speaker 1: That's another weird one. If you search, if you search
55:48
Speaker 1: swent soapple. I think that's right. I had a hard
55:51
Speaker 1: time finding enough information about that one to warrant a
55:54
Speaker 1: whole conversation, but it's definitely on a few listicles of these,
55:58
Speaker 1: uh these weird courtship or jewels, but god, these two,
56:02
Speaker 1: I mean, we always do this, or we have like
56:04
Speaker 1: a couple of guests on I think we've done it
56:06
Speaker 1: with Miles and Jack from the Daily Zeit Guy. So yeah,
56:09
Speaker 1: we'll bring to a piece and then one a piece
56:12
Speaker 1: ends up being more than enough for like two episodes.
56:15
Speaker 1: So I think we found our way to the end
56:18
Speaker 1: of part one of Ridiculous Courtship Rituals with Eli and
56:22
Speaker 1: Diana of Ridiculous Romance. Thank you guys so much for
56:26
Speaker 1: joining us, and gosh, I can't even imagine what the
56:29
Speaker 1: second episode is going to be like spoiler spoiler to
56:32
Speaker 1: go back, The thing is that if the girl in
56:34
Speaker 1: Austria likes you after she's dancing with the apple and
56:37
Speaker 1: her armpit, and you like her, then you have to
56:39
Speaker 1: eat the apple slice. And would you eat an apple
56:45
Speaker 1: slice that I kept under my armpit for the entirety
56:48
Speaker 1: of If that was the rule of courtship, I would
56:52
Speaker 1: be celibate for life. Okay, you won't even eat a
57:00
Speaker 1: sweat soapple slice on the table. That's okay. I wouldn't
57:06
Speaker 1: eat your sweat soaked apple slice either. If you ate
57:09
Speaker 1: my apple soaked in sweat, I'd leaved like we can't.
57:14
Speaker 1: Honesty is the key to any good relationship, and a
57:18
Speaker 1: good relationship is the key to uh any excellent podcast,
57:22
Speaker 1: I would argue. So as as we said at the top,
57:24
Speaker 1: please do go check out Ridiculous Romance and come back
57:29
Speaker 1: to Ridiculous History even if you like the show. Better
57:32
Speaker 1: to check out part two of Weird Courtship Rituals Diana Eli,
57:38
Speaker 1: Where can people learn more about the show and your
57:42
Speaker 1: work well. You can find us on anywhere you get
57:45
Speaker 1: your podcast, you can find Ridiculous Romance. You can also
57:48
Speaker 1: reach out to us. Uh that our email address Romance
57:51
Speaker 1: at I heart media dot com, or you can find
57:54
Speaker 1: us on the Twitters and the Instagram's. Uh my handle
57:58
Speaker 1: is at Oh great, it's Eli, and I'm at dianamite
58:01
Speaker 1: Boom and we're at ridic Romance as well. If you
58:04
Speaker 1: just want to follow the show and keep up with
58:06
Speaker 1: episodes and memes and stuff, we we have that one too. Yeah,
58:10
Speaker 1: you guys do a really great job with your social
58:12
Speaker 1: media account. Just at Ridiculous Romance. Um, we do a
58:16
Speaker 1: piss poor job on ours. It's literally just images of
58:19
Speaker 1: the new episodes, so kudos to you for that. Thanks. No, no,
58:26
Speaker 1: it's we're being honest. Um, this we're not. This is
58:28
Speaker 1: no smoke. We want to thank you guys so much
58:31
Speaker 1: for coming on the show. Of course, as always, thanks
58:33
Speaker 1: to our super producer Max Williams h Noel. Thank thank
58:39
Speaker 1: you man. This is I'm excited for part two because
58:42
Speaker 1: the five of us know what's on the horizon, so
58:46
Speaker 1: we're not gonna we're not gonna spoil it too much,
58:48
Speaker 1: I hope because we want everybody to tune in, right absolutely,
58:52
Speaker 1: you can find our instagram um at ridiculous history. But
58:55
Speaker 1: if you want a little more maybe dynamic content, you
58:58
Speaker 1: can find Ben and I as individuals. I am at
59:00
Speaker 1: how now Noel Brown on Instagram. You can give behind
59:04
Speaker 1: the scenes look at my various misadventures and rabbit holes
59:07
Speaker 1: of research at Ben Bullen in a burst of creativity.
59:12
Speaker 1: It's not all misadventures, right, yeah, you know, under promise
59:15
Speaker 1: over deliver. That's uh at Ben Bullen bo w l
59:18
Speaker 1: i in on Instagram and at Ben bulland hs W
59:21
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Uh fakes of course, as always to our
59:25
Speaker 1: old you know, we almost sabotaged you, Eli and Diana.
59:29
Speaker 1: We have an MSCs. You've heard the name Jonathan Strickland
59:34
Speaker 1: DK the Twister. We didn't want to do that to
59:36
Speaker 1: you sort of Boldemore type figureas we try not to
59:40
Speaker 1: use his name. We just recorded in the studio for
59:42
Speaker 1: the first time and he was in the buildings, so
59:44
Speaker 1: we had to whisper his name like scheming around ye
59:47
Speaker 1: beetle juice rules on the show, so we try not
59:49
Speaker 1: to see his name three times. But but with that,
59:53
Speaker 1: since we've already I think reached two times, maybe saying
59:55
Speaker 1: his name. Let's let's what do you say? We? Uh?
59:58
Speaker 1: We hit the podcast room from now. We'll be back
1:00:01
Speaker 1: this Thursday to hear even more weird courtship rituals. We'll
1:00:05
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from My
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
1:00:17
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows