That's right, Poirot - perhaps you would agree with me when I called it

"The cumbersome beast called the Enlightenment, the push by philosophers and political scientists and many others for expanded rights for ordinary people, including workers and slaves. And eventually women."

You also might find this brilliant article instructive:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1215627109.full.pdf

As that article showed so conclusively, life expectancy has been rising at a 'stunningly linear rate' of about three months for every year, since 1847, in industrialised countries such as Britain: from a base 42 years or so, in hunter-gatherer societies, to 47 in Neolithic and peasant societies, to 85 or whatever it may be these days, in 'advanced' societies.

Nothing's perfect: every technology which may benefit humans may be misused to destroy them as well. I suppose this is what makes religions and Utopian ideologies so attractive - they can falsely promise perfection, 'if only the odd 'dissident' is 'removed or subtracted' ... ' Or beheaded.

So, in a sense, Engels' portrait of the working-class in England in 1844 was a portrait of a society at the END of its messy birth, just on the cusp of major changes in human rights, life-expectancy, industrial law - and all indirectly arising from the new philosophers of the Enlightenment, from Locke and Hume to Marx.

Imperfect, groping toward the light, one might say. But a damn sight better than whatever came before. Isn't that so, Poirot ?

Joe

Yes, the rise in life expectancy is interesting at the time.

I'm wondering how they tallied it statistically, being as many many deaths came in infancy - being from a live birth both before and after industrialisation.

In any case, I'm not going to deviate this thread too much longer, except to say if you ever get the opportunity, try and find a copy of E. Royston Pike's "Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution in Britain"......truly atrocious conditions all round in the factories, mills, mines and towns - and I note that it took government intervention to address it.

"..... a damn sight better than what came before....."

Well that depends on your point of view and where you were situated in the scheme of things as they unfolded.

I take it for granted that a mother in the late 1700's who'd been uprooted from the cottage industry in which she took part, finding her family stuffed into a crowed tenement in a hastily erected town, with one privvy between twenty families, no running fresh water and living next to a dung heap, while she, her husband and her two stunted pale children are forced to slave away methodically inside an airless factory for 14 hours a day (often locked in), might have thought that perhaps things weren't all that fine and dandy.

As you say, we groped our way.

Joe, your characterisation of the nature of Afghan marital relationships is simply silly.

The women are every bit as much a part of the culture as the men and I'm sure that they take pride in being good citizens by their own lights.

Arranged marriages are a commponplace all over the world and there is considerable evidence that they are generally more successful than the late Western invention of romantic love-based unions. Less emotionality and expectation of fireworks in the relationship = more pragmatism and greater stability.

These are primitive, highly insular groups which have prioritised the needs of the tribe, including absolute loyalty and maintaining reputation with other tribes, beyond the need of individuals. In other words, classic eusociality.

What the inheritance traditions are is irrlevant. What's he or she going to do with their share that doesn't involve the rest of the tribe? Do either of them have an option to nick down to Crown and blow the lot on red?

The children belong to the father because in societies without modern medical care lots of women die in childbirth. Our society used to do the same before the advent of maternity hospitals and obstetric monitoring, not to mention antisepsis and other prophylactic measures.

Her word is counted as less than a man's for a couple of reasons. First, she is less likely to be privy to discussions between men. Second, she is only held to be responsible for things within her sphere, while a man is accountable and responsible for both her conduct and his.

Joe, you seem to think that reiterating the cultural differences will somehow make your case, but they all have reasons for existing, they're not arbitrary even if you don't like the implications. It is pretty likely that a tribe which did not follow the rules would simply not survive, either through direct attack from others, or just because it was left to fend for itself when cooperation based on a sense of being able to rely on each other to do as expected is a paramount requirement in such a harsh environment.

Yes, Poirot, we did indeed. And all of those gains since the 17th century have been so precious, not to be sniffed at.

So how long have some societies got to go, who haven't even begun those processes, in economic development (according the Marx, the prerequisite for so much to follow), in the recognition of human rights, male and female, in the possibilities for the flowering of people's potential, including that of Afghan women ?

Antiseptic,

I think you're having a lend of me, nobody could be so pig-ignorant and so dismissive of the rights of women, surely not someone who thought of themselves at progressive.

So get back to me when you want to get serious :)

Cheers,

Joe

"Progressive"? What's that?

Define it for me.

Antiseptic,

* extension of human rights, specially to women;

* protection of people's rights, especially those of women;

* expansion of opportunities, especially for women;

* I think you get the picture.

And really, the horse has bolted in Afghanistan - unless there are vast massacres of women once the Taliban take power again.

In which case, I would be happy to welcome vast numbers of Afghan refugees to Australia.

Joe