Origin of 'cuckold'
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Early Modern & the Imperial Age
Forum Discription: World History from 1500 to the end of WW1
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=31489
Printed Date: 27-Apr-2024 at 19:39
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Topic: Origin of 'cuckold'
Posted By: Sidney
Subject: Origin of 'cuckold'
Date Posted: 01-Apr-2012 at 18:47
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The word cuckold is applied to a man who has an unfaithful wife, and the cuckolded man is said to grow horns. The word cuckold is meant to relate to the word cuckoo, the female of which lays its eggs in other birds' nests.
Is there an alternative derivation for this word? It is the wife who is behaving like a cuckoo, not the husband, so why is he called a cuckoo? What is the link between cuckoos and horns (surely the husband should grow feathers or wings?). And horns traditonally symbolise virility and strength, so why is the husband said to grow them? - surely it would be more likely to say that he had lost his horns (with the accompanying innuendoes) when he can no longer 'keep' his wife. |
Replies:
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 02-Apr-2012 at 19:01
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The horns were originally antlers because defeated stags are forced to give up their mates to the new alpha male. The cuckold was a failure because of his inability to control his woman
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 02-Apr-2012 at 21:23
| So the defeated stag would loose his horns? Or are you meaning all the men had horns? But a cuckold is said to grow horns when he didn't previously have them. |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 02:50
There is a topic about "Skull with Horns"?Maybe Sidney's cuckold came from there! Primeval feminist movement results:Man with Horns!
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 03:21
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In Bulgaria "growing horns" means that one has been made a fool of - like growing donkey's ears; because a human being with an animal parts on his head is caricature of the human being, mocking of it's nature. As for the "cuckoo-ol-ed" husband - whoever slept with his wife dropped his "egg" n the "nest" of the husband - just in case he wife gets pregnant and the husband is stuck with raising someone else's kid - what all males, I suppose, are terrified . Needless to say, such thinking only reveals deeply flawed possessive nature of such thinking - only a possessive male can see his wife as a "nest", or as a breeding machine, and possessiveness is injurious to healthy human relationships that are supposed to be based on mutual trust and understanding of teh very complex nature of gender relationship, not on gender roles. But this is another topic. ------------- |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 03:36
Till the moment we can reproduce ourselves without need of other sex this story will be funny&serious both together! It is sure that child has one mother and many fathers!(Majkata e edna,bashti se mnogu!Bulgarian proverb)P.S. This has been under legislative of punishment according the law.Personally,I agree about sperm banks role and adoption of children.I can not agree about "nesting" out of legal nest cause it implicates lot of health's&moral&ancestral issues!Homosexual behavior starts in sharing of sexual partners!But that is another story. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 12:35
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Well, in societies where the living standards is relatively low and people depend in inheritance to make it, it's important for the male to know that the kids he lives what he has are his. The above Bulgarian proverb implies, for me at least, that the mother is the one who take care of a child, because one can divorce several men and everyone of those to be for a short time a father of her child; but no woman will take care of the child as the mother does - which, most lamentably, is true. However, the gender roles are not a good basis for gender-based relationship, and actually many people never get to a real mature human-to-human relationship because they are concentrated on the gender roles - that's why in US there are so many divorces of people after 50 - when the kids are gone, - because they married for gender roles, they stayed together so she can raise the kids and he support her, so with the kids gone there is no reason to be together. This is immature and unsatisfactory base for a marriage, and hence it doesn't last. In fact, cheating is a way to avoid divorce - one tries to compensate for unsatisfactory relationship with a spouse with taking a lover; if people tool care to grow a mature relationship they don't need to compensate through lovers. As for homosexuality - how possibly can it start from sharing partners? Homosexuality is based on use of alternative sexual techniques, looking at the same sex, which is found more attractive for reasons that cane be physical, psychological, or both. Sharing of partners is an abnormal sexual preference, based on whatever a person tries to compensate for and with, and most homo-sexual couples are monogamous and don't share partners. Amy point is - if one has a successful marriage, in other words if a couple grew a mature relationship, based on mutual trust and appreciating of one another as a human being, then cheating and jealousy have to ground to raise, and no need of. Most lamentably, I had seen very precious few relationships like that, most people are hung up of gender roles and end up with unsatisfactory marriage lives, as a result of that. Children have nothing to do with relationships, but I think it's unreasonable to have kids when one's marriage is not psychologically satisfactory - but many people have kids just to fill in the void they have in their hearts because their relationships are not working - and such behavior causes even bigger messes. ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 19:21
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There might also be a link to the pointed caps worn by fools. These originally had phallic connotations predating Christianity
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 03-Apr-2012 at 19:49
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This reminds me of what Jago says about his wife in "Othello" - he calls her "my night cap". So, if someone was to sleep with his wife, this person would quite literally put a "horn" in his "night cap" - then Jago would be ending up with "pointed cap"; this making him a fool, since the fools wore pointed caps, as seen in a deck of cards.
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Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 04-Apr-2012 at 19:31
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http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2lHwkWMXaxwC&lpg=PA109&dq=cuckold%20horns&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=false - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2lHwkWMXaxwC&lpg=PA109&dq=cuckold%20horns&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=false
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 04-Apr-2012 at 20:45
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Thanks everyone.
I wonder if the woman who makes her husband a cuckold would be a coquette? Or is that a different derivation entirely? Still don't see how horns can be humiliating when they symbolise the stag, the ram, the bull and the goat - all animals celebrated for their strength and virility. Ears I could understand as a symbol of foolishness (especially asses ears, and fool's caps have ears) but not horns. On the other hand Greek mythology has the cuckoo as a symbol of Hera, the wife of Zeus. Zeus seduced Hera disguised as that bird, and was known for his philandering. Two of his better known guises were as the bull that carried off Europa, and the horned god Ammon of Libya. Moses is depicted in Biblical art as having horns (due to a mistranslation of 'radiant face' = 'horned head') to symbolise his meeting with God. The old Celtic horned god - Cernunos, was revered for his strength and vitality. Maybe its an old pagan hang-on from when a man would give his wife to other men as a sign of his power and was somehow a celebrated position??? I've no idea!!! 
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 04-Apr-2012 at 21:12
That's right, Alexander of Macedon was potrayed with ram's horns too, as a symbol of his divine origin I don't recall wife-exchange as any kind of honor among the Mediterranean cultures though, on the opposite, it was a shameful thing to get one's wife had; otherwise there wouldn't be a Trojan war. This site proposes 2 possible explanation: 1. That the horns are symbol of unwareness on one's own status of being cheated to "...Cuckolds and their attendant horns provided a source of humor that was notably widespread during the seventeenth century, especially in plays, and then sharply curtailed afterward. Professor, Claire McEachern argues that horn humor was prevalent because it allowed a ludic response, collective laughter and even enjoyment to the anxieties provoked by the Protestant theology. The cuckolds’ horns, because they represent ignorance of one’s own status, resonate with the uncertainties of soteriology, while other widely disseminated symbolic registers of the horn expand the leverage of the ludic response...." http://www.cuckoldpassions.com/cuckold-articles/why-cuckolds-have-horns/2009/02/25/ - http://www.cuckoldpassions.com/cuckold-articles/why-cuckolds-have-horns/2009/02/25/ 2. That the cheated to husbands are "horny"=unsatisfied, because their wives are spending their energy on satisfying someone else. In any case, this seems to be a later image, staring it earliest in the early Middle Ages, and then it has nothing to do with antiquity and the symbolic meaning of horns then. ------------- |
Posted By: benzin
Date Posted: 05-Apr-2012 at 10:53
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I dont think when the word cackoo was given to that bird they took much care of its the male or the famele wich takes over other birds nests.
the word cackoo is similar to this birds hungarian name : kakkuk ugrian : kukkuk |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 05-Apr-2012 at 21:17
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So that's where the modern slang for promiscuous "horny" came from. A husband deprived of his wife would doubtlessly look for sex elsewhere, resulting in other women committing adultery
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 06-Apr-2012 at 01:43
Or man has been used by other men for nesting their seeds.Trick has used in religions where close relatives mating was forbidden for X-men breeding!
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Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 06-Apr-2012 at 20:22
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Although cuckoldry was a predominately-male crime, the cheating wife was by no means safe from the community's criticism. She would be seen as a scold who abused her husband in addition to disrespecting him by seeing other men. To punish such disorderly women, Tudor-era people could resort to shaming-rituals of varying degrees of severity
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 02:38
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Does baby sitter comes voluntary at your home Nick?Have been lot of male baby sitters without payment check in History?What does law says about it today?How did they know woman not carry other child before She enter new home?Sure check!!! [TUBE]22MUG50wA-o22MUG50wA-o[/TUBE] |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 02:58
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How was cuckoldry a male crime? The cuckold was victimized by cheating wife, he wasn't doing anything wrong; now, a cheating husband was supposed to be blamed, but of course in most societies only female cheating is frowned upon, the male one is seen as something "cool", in a brilliant show of double standards. However a cheating husband wasn't called "cuckold", which was a shame, actually the shame was on a cheated husband, not no a cheating one. Hence - it's was an honor to have someone else's wife, but a shame to have yours had... in a display of most subjective and unethical male selfishness, not no use a stringer word. After all, women cheat with males, not with ducks, so if one is cheating on his wife, all he deserve is to be ...cheated on in response. ------------- |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 03:11
| Stereotypes are always on Don!Human nature is something else.I knew the man that had married a wife and died few years after.Next year real father of children entered the House of passed cuckold. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 03:56
What does it matter who is the father of whom, and with what the woman came into the new house or didn't? Children are children, they need love and they are not in blame as to who made them. If people think about that, instead of their own selfishness there would be less pain in the world. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 04:09
So, it's all about houses and material possessions, is that it? There is an easy way to fix that - no one should have anything, no inheritances, young people should rely only on themselves to get on with life, women have their kids and raise them by themselves, with no help of males, so no one can say anything. So, there. And I know a person who spend all her life hearing that she was a bastard, and the family of her step-father never let her forget that, nor her the family of her mother. This is what human selfishness bring to - people living with broken hearts. The pain people cause to each other over nothing - we better hope there is no god, otherwise there will be hell to pay. And human nature has nothing to do with anything - only human cruelness. ------------- |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 06:58
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It is always Human eye and course Don.There was a comedy show on TV in my youth:"Theater in Your House"!It has started with song and words "...I like Theater but not in my House....!There is no better revenge than this one!For male unit it is equal with dead sentence:Male without ancestry is out of the game!No more comments from my site here!Thanks! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 13:02
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Well, everyone is out of the game, because everyone dies, and one's children are their own persons, not their parents. There isn't real continuation in progeny, this is illusion - since I don't possess my child, nor is he anything like I am, and all kids are like that. People only lie to themselves that their kids have anything to do with themselves - while they should see them as their own persons, and raise them to be so, whoever their father or mother is, not to aim towards some imagined whatever. We are all condemned to death - with kids or not, and if something is left after us is the times we showed love and mercy to other - everything else is dust in the wind. This is my opinion anyway.
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Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 13:22
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I have nothing against adoption/raising other children.That's noble and human feature.Solving of internal marriage conflicts in this animal way i can not approve.Connections we create&brake if they do not work! Who does gives right to woman for this? |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 13:41
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You mean lying to the male and cheating? There is no right of anyone to do such a thing, male or female, it's injurious in many ways, and it solves nothing. In general people who have miserable married life but cannot divorce for some reason do it to feel better, but it solves nothing on the long run. Lying cannot bring anything good, no matter for what reason it's done. My mother was unhappy in her marriage and compensated in this way, and made everyone, herself included, miserable through and through, with us her kids having to pay for that every single day. This is what always happens - the innocent suffer the most. So I know the problem of cheating through many POV, not only one. I can't approve cheating either, no matter who is doing it - male or female - what makes me angry is that male cheating is overlooked, or bragged with, while women are called names for it - this is wrong, requirements should be equal for both sides. Only because males don't get pregnant doesn't mean that they have the right to hurt their wives by having affairs - because it hurts to know that you are used as a domestic slave and wiped with, and then younger and prettier girls get to be loved and adored. In any case, in an unhappy marriage, a divorce is the honest way to deal with, if the marriage is damaged beyond repair and has no future; cheating only prolongs the agony and hurts more, everyone involved. ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 19:13
Because a man who couldn't control his wife was seen as a failure during the early modern period. He had to be punished to ensure other men would beat their wives more regularly and prevent them from cheating. The Tudors saw women as inherently irrational children who had to be disciplined as well as loved ------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Apr-2012 at 23:05
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Seen this way, OK... like the Muslim fundamentalists see women as something that has to be controlled and disciplined by males, no matter if those males are fathers, husbands, brothers or sons. ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 08-Apr-2012 at 19:49
The past was very different from today. Like modern-day Islamic societies and the conservative American bible belt, married women were expected to dress modestly by covering their heads and wearing long skirts. The husband was ruler and master of his household and had power over his wife, children and servants ------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: CuckoldSlave
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2012 at 11:48
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Getting back to the original questions by Sidney: 1. Etymology: The allusion to the old-world cuckoo (cuckold is from Old French, so we know the specific species) is based on the notion that the deceived husband may be being duped into raising offspring who are not his own, just as cuckoos sometimes do. What is misleading you is the idea that cuckoos lay their eggs in the nest of other species. They do, but they also lay them in the nest of other cuckoos, because not all cuckoos employ this deceptive strategy (called "brood parasitism" today) all the time. Remember too that at the time the concepts of species was very different from ours today. 2. Horns: Old-world deer are polygamous animals. The male collects a harem of female that he mates with. When one male challenges another, the female all leave with the victor and the defeated wanders off to start again from scratch trying to find a mate and therefore perpetuate his genes. (Contrary to myth, it is not all about horn size, although that plays a role.) The lone stag was a powerful image of loss and defeat in the early modern era. Cuckolds "growing horns" was an allusion to this - the suggestion that cuckolds were metamorphizing into lone stags. (An interesting echo of Acteon, actually.) 3. Coquette is an entirely different derivation: from the French "coquet," meaning "flirt," itself derived from "cock," as in a rooster. The strutting of the rooster was what the allusion was to. Although being cuckolded was considered far more shameful for males than females in the early modern period, it could be considered embarrassing either way. Females who have been thus deceived by unfaithful partners are called "cuckquean" rather than "cuckolds." Males who know their partners are unfaithful are are accepting of or resigned to it (for cuckolds were always deceived and unwilling) were called "wittols," (from the "witting" sense of "wit," as in knowing - he was a "witting cuckold," ie: a "wittol") and that was worse. It was a shameful failure to be a cuckold, but it was contemptible depravity to be a wittol. (As you may guess from my screen name, this is a subject I know quite a bit about...)
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Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2012 at 12:22
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Very content approach you have about subject of this topic!Personal experiences you have or you are just a storyteller?It is not always "unfaithful in marriage" but dating with more than one male&female. One of them that first offer the ring as result of mutual coital activities is cuckold.Girl takes the wealth and security always for offspring he bears!Law of nature rules in human society from inception of World. Moral:We need a DNA map for all those results cause of future incest mating that produces future possible Health problems=Red hood riding describes main one,person with J9(Vampire )diagnosis and their eventual mixtures with humans,known as Werewolves! In new movie productions they are also X-men. |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2012 at 07:43
In the Tudor period men were very concerned about preserving their bloodline. If another man fathered the children, the husband's bloodline would die out ------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 03-Dec-2012 at 08:59
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There was a ritual for newly-married couples known as "swearing of the horns:" a promise to be faithful throughout the marriage
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2012 at 08:23
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A variant of the "swearing of the horns" practised in London. Originally the participant had to kiss the breasts of a woman, but if none were present the antlers of a stag were used http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/folklore/swearing-on-the-horns.html%20 - http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/folklore/swearing-on-the-horns.html ------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |