Napoleon Bonaparte, apart from numerous victories on the battlefields, also had many love conquests. He was interested in both well-born ladies and ordinary townswomen. It is worth considering what the French Emperor really thought about women ...
If you think he was a romantic type, you are seriously mistaken. The Corsican had - as measured by today's standards - a very controversial opinion about the role of women in life. We can find out about it best by reading the notes left by Count Emmanuel de Las Casesa - a companion of the dethroned monarch on the island of St. Helen.
The woman belongs to the man
He describes in translation a walk, during which Napoleon delivered a rather long monologue on the topic of interest to us, which from the very first sentences attracted a lot of attention from people around the emperor. Namely, it stated, no less than that:
We Westerners have about them [women - author's footnote,] completely wrong sentence. By giving women too much attention, we have broken the natural relationships between the sexes .
We made a big mistake treating them almost equally with men. The people of the East behave much fairer and wiser, where the woman belongs to a man, because women are naturally our slaves.
During his stay on the island of St. Helen Napoleon raised many issues during his talks with Count Emmanuel de Las Cases. There were also considerations about women.
That they dare to rule us is only due to our incomprehensible behavior. Women use attributes given to them by nature to deceive and guide us. For one by whom we do good, there are a hundred by which we commit nonsense.
Polygamy is what we need
This is just the beginning! The Corsican then turned to polygamy, stating, as de Las Cases noted, that:
A man needs a woman to bear children. One woman cannot be enough for him. She is his woman when she carries a child in her womb, when she nourishes the infant. She cannot be his companion when she is sick and also if she cannot give him a child. Due to nature, a man, regardless of age, does not know this kind of limitation, must therefore have several women , etc.
Napoleon on the island of St. Helena dictates memories. I wonder if he also shares his thoughts on the fair sex? Maybe it proves the advantages of polygamy again?
Bonaparte finally returned to the issue of equality between men and women, clearly expressing his views on the matter, saying that is sheer madness . He also stated that:
Women are our property - not the other way around. Because they give us children, but the man does not give birth to them. The woman belongs to him, as the fruit tree belongs to the gardener. If a man is unfaithful to his wife, let him confess and repent, and there will be no trace of it. The woman will get angry, forgive and calm down. Moreover, it may benefit from it from time to time.
The infidelity of wives is quite different. Admitting guilt won't help, repentance will be no use. Who can guarantee that no consequences will follow. The harm done may be beyond repair. Therefore, wives never admit it.
Today such views would be met with stiff opposition, not only by feminists, and two hundred years ago they were quite original, after all, polygamy is rather alien to our cultural circle ... Maybe it's good that Napoleon did not conquer all of Europe? If he had succeeded, we would have lived in a strange world today.
Source:
Trivia is the essence of our website. Short materials devoted to interesting anecdotes, surprising details from the past, strange news from the old press. Reading that will take you no more than 3 minutes, based on single sources. This particular material is based on:
- Emmanuel de Las Cases, Memorial with St. Helena , vol. 2, Finna, 2011.