Mrs. Warren – the epitome of modern European women's civilization

This article is based on the Philosophical Gate

Mrs. Warren --

The epitome of modern European women's civilization

I was a long time ago

(Law School of Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002)

Abstract: In the entire history of human civilization, modern European female civilization occupies an important page, and this page is absolutely refreshing and brilliant. Taking Rousseau as the starting point and Mrs. Warren as the clue of argument, it can reproduce the unique but easy-to-Chinese cultural characteristics in modern European women's civilization, and give people some useful enlightenment from the unique charm of European women's civilization.

Original Journal: Journal of Fuzhou University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 2, 2002

Keywords: Mrs. Warren; Rousseau; Modern Europe; Female civilization

When Rousseau and Madame Warren met for the fourth time, he was 20 years old, the age of boiling blood and lust, so he often looked for opportunities to flirt with women. "In order to free me from the dangers of youth, my mother thought it was time to treat me like an adult." [2] (P134) Madame Warren had a serious conversation with him and asked Rousseau to live with her. Rousseau's heart was completely occupied by her. He threw himself into Mrs. Warren's arms with the greatest love and a strong sense of chaos. "Two or three times, when I excitedly held her tightly in my arms, my tears soaked her breasts." [2] (P135) After living together, Madame Warren made many efforts to enable Rousseau to be able to follow the high society and gain a foothold in the social field. But soon, for physical reasons, Rousseau left Madame Warren to find Dr. Fitz in Montpellier.

In a heated longing, Rousseau returned to Madame Warren without stopping. But what awaited him was a change that caught him off guard: his place had been taken by a young hairdresser. He couldn't believe it, he was hysterical, he was in tears. But Madame Warren was calm, and perhaps she felt that Rousseau had the courage and ability to leave her and survive independently in high society. In the past, her love and protection for Rousseau was only to treat him as a child. But at this time, Rousseau's love for Madame Warren grew day by day. This love has been sublimated into his gratitude and reverence for Mrs. Warren's 13-year nurturing grace. But Mrs. Warren no longer had the enthusiasm she once had for him. "What a terrible illusion life is." Rousseau sighed in the memories of beauty and pain.

The limitations of words are obvious. Even Rousseau, in his bittersweet recollection of Madame Warren's nurturing grace for him, felt the paleness of words. Time has taken away all the details of life that can be examined, and we can only deduce in some incomplete texts with a kind reverence that Madame Warren pinched out a giant of European thought like a clay sculpture artist with the hands of a noble woman.

Second, adhere to and tolerate sexual morality

It is difficult to say in a word or two that Madame deSerceau was Rousseau. Mother? eldest sister? Friend? teacher? guardian? lover? Their relationship is so delicate that even Chinese readers who do not share a common culture with Europe can read the grand human context behind the subtlety. Interestingly, through Rousseau's writings, we can learn about Mrs. Warren's multiple and complex concepts of marriage and sexual morality.

Mrs. Warren was originally an aristocratic lady in Föwe, Switzerland, and married Monsieur Warren of Lausanne at a young age. Unhappy with her marriage, she fled and defected to King Victor Yamed of Sardinia. The King of Sardinia gave her an annuity and placed her in Annecy in 1772. If the understatement of the narrative makes us ignore the enlightening significance of the event itself, then we have made a big mistake again. Because in the eyes of the Chinese of moral reason, Mrs. Warren's easy betrayal of moral marriage is a very incredible thing, even an intolerable thing. Like China, Europe since the Middle Ages has been a patriarchal society. Curiously, we can clearly feel that in such a secular society, there are traditions that are clearly different from those of China. There, despite the ubiquity of religious doctrine and secular morality, people do not gamble their happiness on doctrine and morality. Even if it is difficult and dangerous. They also want to lose no time in taking their personal happiness back into their hands. This is well reflected in Mrs. Warren's marital ethics.

Mrs. Warren's marital ethics are not difficult to understand, but her sexual morality is somewhat puzzling to us.

When Rousseau grew into a 20-year-old handsome and energetic young man, Madame Warren solemnly asked him to live together. This caught Rousseau a little off guard, and it was even more unexpected. For even when we are immersed in the reading, we cannot completely abandon preconceived ethical and moral values. Moreover, as we have read, this sexual relationship between Rousseau and Madame Warren is open.

There is a more complicated side to the matter, with Madame Warren maintaining a sexual relationship with her housekeeper Anai at the same time. In this way, the three of them lived in harmony, accompanied by love, and "formed a collective that is unique in the world." This kind of relationship, in the eyes of outsiders, is really difficult to understand. Rousseau wrote of this: "I am fully convinced that she did not hesitate to disobey her duty in order to free me from the almost inevitable dangers, to enable me to preserve myself and to keep my true colors." Her devotion had nothing to do with the pleasure of carnal desire. [1] (P132) I do not wish to doubt the honesty of Rousseau's writing, but at least I am sure that, thanks to gratitude and nostalgia, Rousseau magnifies the divine aura in his words, thus making the image of Madame Warren appear even more radiant. Leaving aside this lyrical and argumentative text, it is the basis of facts alone

Body, can be inferred as follows:

1. Madame Warren's cohabitation with Rousseau was deliberate. Once the decision was made, her attitude was insistent. This is not an easy task for a woman who needs decency to live in the upper class.

2. When Rousseau was 20 years old, Mrs. Warren was 32 years old, which was the peak of women's physiological development. Rousseau's wishful thinking in his writings that Madame Warren was merely trying to "free me from the dangers of youth" is somewhat unbelievable.

3) Mrs. Warren openly maintains sexual relations with two men at the same time because she loves both men. Therefore, under the criterion of feelings, Mrs. Warren is tolerant of sexual morality and chastity. From this point of view, the European concept of human nature at that time was relatively stretched, and the social and biological nature of human beings were parallel, not mutually repressive. This is also what is difficult for traditional Chinese concepts to understand.

It is not difficult to summarize that Mrs. Warren's sexual morality is persistent and tolerant. On this point, it triggered a little thought for me:

Some people rudely said that the aristocratic society in eighteenth-century Europe was a kind of obscenity, which in itself is a kind of "ghost in the heart" statement. This claim is based on the fact that aristocratic women in post-Renaissance Europe began to become assertive (opinionated?), thus making their lives more laissez-faire. But if they were not ignorant or ignorant of world history, they should not have made such a ridiculous claim. For long before the Renaissance, and even back to the Greco-Roman period of the Middle Ages, the aristocratic women of Europe at that time showed their noble qualities and temperament of autonomy and self-confidence, although it was a dark age of denial of status to women through red tape. I don't know if you've seen the movie Gladiator. The film tells a history from the time of the Roman Empire. After the death of the Roman Emperor Pertina, his daughter held her back to her brother, the thorny gaze of a Roman Empire ruler, and used love to inspire the "enemy of the state" - martial arts, to realize the ideal of Rome - to return to the people. She was supposed to go with the flow and live a drunken life with the absurd and shameless rulers of Rome. But she didn't. She is also bold and cautious in her pursuit of ideals. It is not simple for a woman to understand what the ideal of parliamentary democracy is and decide to do something for the realization of this ideal. There is also a film called "Braveheart", which has a beautiful lady image that is very inspiring. She was a princess of England in the twelfth century, but she lowered her posture and dedicated her affectionate kiss and jade body to her country's enemy, Wallace, the "mob leader" from colonial Scotland, simply because she was touched by a loyal love legend of Wallace, and simply because she realized that her noble sentiments were closely linked to Wallace's courageous heart and blood in fighting for freedom. In Eastern China, everyone is often puzzled by this, and the key lies in the fact that our nation lacks this cultural temperament and heritage. Since ancient times, this noble quality and temperament of European noble ladies has been well inherited. Their sex is only loyal to their love, and their love is only loyal to bravery and justice. This kind of loyalty often makes their sexual morality run counter to secular morality, thus forming their own persistent and tolerant background in the long historical continuation.

3. The glorious tradition of the noble ladies

What interested me the most was Rousseau. How did he become a giant in the history of European culture? Rousseau was the son of a watchmaker in Geneva, who worked as an apprentice, a servant, a companion, and entered a shelter like a beggar, but after a long period of diligent self-study and personal struggle, he gradually took off his poor tunic and became a music teacher, secretary, and professional writer. Here I find an interesting sociological phenomenon: social vertical mobility.

Although Rousseau gave him the most honorable title of "commoner thinker". But it is undeniable that all of Rousseau's achievements depend on his mobility from the bottom to the upper class. Without this process, Rousseau would not have written such an astonishing stroke in cultural history, even if he had the talent and disposition. Thus, the last question remains: why did Rousseau enter the upper class?

Posterity can unmistakably read in Rousseau's autobiographical works that the wandering Rousseau was famous for his achievements with the love and help of the amorous ladies of France. There are at least three plots in this: he is cultivated by the noble ladies to achieve contact with the upper class figures, the most important of which is of course Mrs. Warren; After entering high society, his social hubs were the noblewomen, Madame Dobin, Madame Epinay, Madame Udeto, Madame Luxemburg, Madame Bouy, etc., all of which gave him all kinds of help, and gave him good edification and enlightenment; After his achievements, society was furious with him, beating him like a drowning dog and nowhere to go, when it was the French noblewoman who played the role of cultural protector, and from this point of view, it was largely the French noblewoman who rewrote the direction of European thought and social development more than 100 years later.

So, where is the real charm of these ladies?

"In the upper class of Europe, there is such a glorious tradition that the noble ladies not only love and promote the cause of culture and art, but also, with the posture of protecting the gods, try their best to help those most talented and creative cultural people, and the modern novels that are popular in the world are the first to sprout and raise their children in the fragrant pavilion of the noble women. Almost every innovation in modern art comes from the art salon of the noble lady. Even the Renaissance and the French Enlightenment can be said to have been born from the salons of the noble ladies. ” [3](P97)

Social interaction is achieved by the interaction of cultures, which is the most respectable and lovely place for European noble ladies, and we will look back at Madame Warren:

Her education was messy, but erudite; She has a rather unique argument about literature; She is enthusiastic about educating music lessons and developing the idea of cultivating musicians; In addition, she was kind, cheerful, cheerful, frank, gentle, and most importantly, she had a heart of compassion for the less fortunate. This is Mrs. Warren, a microcosm of European women's civilization, and there is no more embodied in the charm of European women's civilization than this glorious tradition of European noble ladies. In the light of European history, we can almost conclude that the glorious traditions of noble ladies, especially their unreserved enthusiasm and outstanding talents, as well as their active participation in social ideals, have made European women's civilization stand out and shine throughout human civilization. The most far-reaching significance of the existence of this civilization is that if it is lost, then the arrival of the modern history of Europe will be postponed, postponed, postponed; The most direct significance is that when a social system is disordered and rigid, it still ensures and accelerates social mobility, especially the vertical mobility of society, so that society has the possibility of rebirth.

Comparison creates culture, comparison makes difference. China's female civilization is not necessarily so clear. More than two thousand years of sword and light sword shadows and male totalitarianism have almost drowned out the faint voices of Chinese women. Let's start with Mrs. Warren. Mrs. Warren's insistence on sexual morality, and her determination to cultivate a talented man who is not related to her, comes from the confidence of the nobility. Self-confidence is the innate temperament of the nobility, there is no doubt about it. However, the self-confidence of the aristocratic women of Europe was different from that of the aristocratic women of the East. In China, when we talk about nobility, it is usually in terms of social status, and this is especially true of aristocratic women, and the status of Chinese aristocratic women is absolutely dependent on male aristocrats. But in the West, the nobility not only represents status, but also a temperament. From this point of view alone, the connotation of Chinese aristocratic women has been greatly reduced compared with European aristocratic women. In contrast to this, the self-confidence of Chinese aristocratic women comes from a condescending sense of superiority and the power resources of husbands and wives, so this self-confidence is frivolous, picky, and directionless; This situation did not begin to change until modern China. The self-confidence of European aristocratic women came not only from the unique advantage of status, but also from the innate spiritual superiority. This spiritual superiority is due to their ancestry on the one hand, cultural inheritance on the other hand, and on the other hand, they are mostly well-educated, interesting, knowledgeable, and assertive. Therefore, their self-confidence is firm, tolerant and has a strong sense of direction.

In all the subsets of Chinese scriptures and histories, it is not difficult to find that the reason why Chinese women have come to such a narrow space contains at least three factors: the ancestor worship of Chinese has completely limited the thinking of Chinese, and it is natural to regard women as tools for reproduction; The ancient Chinese idea of predestination strengthened the dominant position of men and the subordinate status of women; The Chinese view of chastity, which is essentially a simple biological view of chastity, determines their physical and mental puppet nature. Obviously, due to various limitations, Chinese women have not played their role in society to the fullest extent like European women.

Today, people are still struggling tirelessly for the idealization of society, hoping to ensure their happiness through rational and reasonable systems to avoid man-made disasters. Even so, we still have reason to believe that female civilization, as the most emotional part of human civilization, will always be indispensable. She always expresses the most beautiful and romantic spiritual undertones of human ideals, and because of her flexibility and resilience, she makes the entire human civilization more resilient. In the following century of Rousseau's time, also in France, Comte, the originator of Western sociology, repeatedly argued that women's sensibility and altruism were far better than men's sense and selfishness in terms of social values. This is not necessarily an eternal truth, but it is absolutely intriguing.

bibliography:

[1] Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex (Volume I)[M].Translated by Tao Tiezhu. Beijing:China Book Publishing House,1998.]

[2] [f] Rousseau. Confessions[M]. Translated by Shi Wei. Xining:Qinghai People's Publishing House,1995.]

[3] Moro. Handbook of the Disgraced[M].Hohhot: Inner Mongolia Education Press,1998.]

[Editor-in-Charge: Lin Yi]

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