DO THE FRENCH ACCEPT AFFAIRS and THEN STAY MARRIED TO PRESERVE THE EXTENDED FAMILY?

HELEN FRITH POWELL - WHAT LIVING IN FRANCE TAUGHT ME ABOUT MYSELF - SEX, MARRIAGE AFFAIRS

The author is British and is comparing France and Great Britain.

TEASER: The French notion of liberte is at the very heart of their attitude towards fidelity and marriage.  As Professor Micheal Worton, vice-provost and Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature at UCL, tells me: "The notion of freedom is deeply inscribed in the French psyche. Marrying and then misbehaving is seen as being free." Are they right? After all, their divorce rate is slightly lower than ours is - in Britain it is currently 45 per cent.

"The family is the main issue," says, Delphine, a French friend and mother of three. "The reason we accept the natural human urge to wander is that the family is more important than the individual, and when I talk about the family I mean the extended family; we are talking about 50 to 60 people. So if you break up the couple, you affect all those people. It's just not worth it."

ROYAL ORDER OF THE KLONDIKE KATES TAKING APPLICATIONS! WINTER CARNIVALS

WINTER CARNIVAL : ROYAL ORDER OF THE KLONDIKE KATES   a History of the Order!

EXCERPT :  Today the members of the Royal Order of Klondike Kates make well over 100 appearances a year.  The current group of active members will participate in approximately twenty parades over the summer months where they sing live on the award-winning float.  They also perform at many senior citizen's homes, Meals on Wheels, Chamber of Commerce shows, conventions, benefits, the Minnesota State Fair, and many other engagements....  Their statement of purpose for their organization reads "... to promote, enhance, and maintain a positive image, reputation and public perception of the legend of Klondike Kate."



August 2012 was KLONDIKE KATE (Kathleen Eloisa Rockwell) MONTH here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT.  Check out the posts in the archives.  If interested in Gold Rush Mistresses, you might also be interested in LOLA MONTEZ, who was Mistress of the Month, February 2019  

SALON DES CENT

WHAT CAN THE FRENCH TEACH US ABOUT MARRIAGE?

VOGUE : MARRIAGE : WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE FRENCH?  by Christina Perez published April 8, 2017

TEASER: FRANCEINFIDELITY IS OVERRATED -  BE YOUR HUSBAND'S MISTRESS INSTEAD.

As Piazza points out in her book* only 47% of French say infidelity is unacceptable in a marriage, compared to 84% of Americans. Still that doesn't necessarily mean French women are as tolerant to affairs as we've been lead to think.  "That is a silly cliche you Americans believe," one of the writer's French friends tells her before clarifying, "I don't mind if my president has sex with other women, that's not my problem... of course, I hope my man doesn't do that to me." Instead the French believe in working to keep each other interested so that neither person wants to have an affair in the first place. "It's work. He still need to conquer me every day and I need to make him want me every day. I need to put in the effort - and here's what's important: I want to do the work,"  Piazza's friend says....

*  Jo Piazza, author of How to Be Married (What I learned from Real Women on Five Continents About Surviving My First Really Hard Year of Marriage.) 

THE MISTRESS : AMELIA CURRAN

ARE THE FRENCH SEXIER? OR IS THAT JUST A STEREOTYPE? ARE THEY REALLY MISTRESS TOLERANT?

December is the month that closes the year, a month that goes fast, especially if you're a social being.  I tend to get more creative in choosing my subjects for this month, knowing that my mistress-interested readers will still check in, but others will be too busy to read MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT and choose to catch up some time in January.

This December I want to devote some time to a stereotype, of France - and the French, that their sensibility is simply sexier than ours, and that the acceptance of Mistresses is part of their more sensible attitudes about sexuality.  Is this true?  Still true?  Are they a bit crazy or do we have a lot to learn from them?

Over the last several years I've featured a number of French Mistresses or Mistressing that happened to take place in France, or French subjects.  The whole time I've been desperate to feature some Spanish Mistresses, some Hispanic Mistresses, and to discuss what happens in Spain, but comparatively little is available to read or research on that subject published in English, in the United States.

As an American I no doubt was effected by "puritanism" as well as the conservatism of my upbringing in which sex was not only expected to happen within marriage, but was not discussed; I and my peers were raised to be ignorant, had to get our own information; some depended upon and were wrongly informed by romance novels. Two of my high school friends shared one prescription of the Pill, each taking it every other day!

Sex was also the way into marriage for many of my peers, especially when after some time with one partner there occurred a pregnancy. Now - no longer does sex mean that a couple is serious and exclusive and on their way to a life time of togetherness. Now there are many more ways to define one's sexuality such as "fluid."

Reading over the acceptance of sex outside marriage in France, as well as men having Mistresses in France, I learned that it's considered to be OK so long as it does not hurt the FAMILY (this meaning the extended family, not just the nuclear family) and it's thought that having affairs - or Mistresses PRESERVES MARRIAGE. This is something that I've come to believe is true. Is it American (or Protestant?) to choose a separation or divorce over the discovery that at least one partner has been unfaithful?  

Therefore, while I get cozy with music to set the mood and settle in with my cell phone researching articles, magazines, and books, I ask you to contemplate this question with me. I'll feature a series of articles for you to link to with some excerpts to get that going.

As always you can comment, with ideas, suggestions, personal experiences, and the like.  Read my Comments Policy in Pages!

WARM HOLIDAYS,

Missy

TAKE FIVE : DAVE BRUBECK

SWEET REUNION