Nothing funny about feldspar

Mr. Jefferson, dear Mr. Jefferson,
I’m only forty-one I still have my virility
And I can romp thru cupid’s grove with great agility
But life is more than sexual combustibility.

Whether or not I got the words correct as printed, this is the lyric in my head today. It’s from the scene in 1776 where the declaration-writing committee is coercing Jefferson into writing the thing, and he is trying to decline because he hadn’t seen his wife for far too long. This quote is from Adams’ response.

I was given a copy of 1776 around the time the movie came out. I was about 10 or so, and I loved it. The person who gave me the book also gave me a cassette of the cast recording. I wore them both out. I think I may have the book in a box somewhere, but I’m sure the tape is long gone.

At 10 I laughed at the innuendoes — trying to imagine people my parents’ age getting huffy about other (younger) people thinking they (my folks) are too old for sex. Now that I am that age, I laugh at those younger people who think they invented sex. I laugh as well at those older people who figure their old folks were all prim and proper until they were married. If you wanted to have sex at sixteen, what makes you think your grandmother didn’t?

That’s the problem with trying to assume that books and periodicals of the 19th century are accurate portrayals of 19th century society. They’re not, not anymore than 1776 is an accurate portrayal of the events surrounding the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence. It has similarities, sure, but it takes liberties with the facts for dramatic impact. (For instance, the movie has Martha Jefferson coming to Philadelphia, where Jefferson, in fact, went to Virginia — but then we wouldn’t have had the salacious “He plays the violin” song and dance, now would we?)

So when I read all the kerfluffle abut the woman who’s posting that same sex marriage is bad because marriage is designed for procreation and in The Good Old Days everyone who was “good” waited until marriage to have sex, well, I just have to think that she’s really got her head in the sand, doesn’t she? 19th c. representations of chastity, etc., it seems to me, are showing an idealized world, not a reflection of the real world. It would be like saying in a century or so that everyone in the late 20th c. must have decorated like Martha Stewart because she had so many books and magazines for sale.

And yet, in my vast storehouse of books, there’s no Martha.