Pardon the question but............

[akhet]

well, i thought of something today.  - i realize this is remarkable:)  but anyways, remember how leut forbes and millcent were together at night many times, and she always felt bad about it - well i think u get my question then.  I did not think there was any chance that they had done it, but millicent seems to be more than just heartborken.  I could be wrong, but u know how girls react to hit and run situations.  Maybe i am wrong and they never did it and she is just heartbroken, but i started to see the other as a possibilty today.  He is a real creep for testifying against vicki - his character is the opposite of nice joe

[Gerard]

Millicent probably wasn't even sure what that was.  And in those good-ol'-days, a lady and a gentleman-caller just being alone was cause enough for scandal; holding hands was on par for tripping the light fantastic with the lights out today.  That's why she felt used and tossed aside like an old, laceed up shoe.

Gerard

[CastleBee]

This thread really made me think about the big differences between television today and 34 years ago.  When I read akhet's post I could really see the possibility of what he suggested happening.  Then I had to hit my mental way back machine and try to recall how they would have presented this situation in 1968 rather than 2002.  Now, I may be influenced more than a little by the innocent age I was then, but after I did make that mental trip back in time, Gerard's idea made the most sense.  I'm pretty sure that if DS was being produced today akhet there would be a good chance you would be exactly right - whether it would have been historically likely or not.  

[Luciaphile]

I don't think they had sex, if that's what you're implying    

"Proper" unmarried ladies in those days were not supposed to keep unchaperoned company with men.
They also weren't supposed to go walking any great length unescorted and solo night time trips into town (that all those Collins women do in 1795, 1840, and 1897) was simply not done.  

Millicent takes it to an extreme, I admit, lol, when she declares that she is "ruined!" because she has been caught alone with Nathan in the drawing room.  If you're not discovered or if the person who finds you in an inappropriate situation, then you're hardly socially ruined or consigned to a life as a fallen woman.

But as far as her "lost honor," it seems clear that we're supposed to believe this is her exaggerated notion, dark comic relief as it were, an indication of her mental state now and what it will be.

As for Nathan.  Well, yeah, he's a cad, but he's so good looking  .  I might add that at this point Vicki and Peter are so self-destructive, that there's absolutely nothing anyone could do to save them.  

The battle for Nathan's testimony comes at a critical point in his life.  I'm certainly not saying that his behavior was right, but he's got a choice of:

1. Cooperating with Trask and Joshua and rescuing his tarnished career, recovering his romance with the wealthy Millicent, and hitting the 18th century equivalent of the lottery.

2. Not perjuring himself, but risking losing absolutely everything including his career for a space case of woman who rejected him.  

I don't think he did the moral, right, or correct thing, and he's a louse, no question, but it's a very pragmatic, highly practical move on his part.  

Luciaphil

[MikeS]

I doubt Millicent and Nathan ever had sex.  I think her reaction was a combination of her devastation over his deception and her already somewhat-fragile mental state.

[Raineypark]

Let's remember when and where we are folks, and particularly who Millicent is.

A young woman from a wealthy background, not living on a farm, could very well go to her marriage bed without the slightest idea what was about to happen.  

She might never have  seen pigs or cows being born, and certainly never slept in the same room with her parents and a half dozen siblings.  In the Collins house she's probably never seen much affection, much less lust, if Joshua and Naomi are her only examples.

Millicent's notion of being truly 'ruined' may be vague at best....she might believe that by kissing that wretch Nathan she has, in fact, "gone all the way".

From our perspective here in the "Information as God" age, it's very difficult for us to understand what true ignorance really is.

Raineypark

[Carol]

When you stop and think   about it, we're really not too far from puritanism. It was still considered a "sin" for a woman to spend too much time alone with a man right up until the 70's.

When my cousin got his girlfriend pregnant in the 60's, it was   "we know what you've been doing"; it was a shameful thing to be fooling around and then getting caught.  Even when I went to nursing school in the early 70's, my then boyfriend(now husband) was not allowed above the first floor of my dorm. I could entertain him in the lobby. Doors were locked at midnight and if you arrived late, too bad! You were considered a "bad girl" if you had to spend the night elsewhere.

So, you can just imagine the rules and regulations of women from a respectable family back in 1795.  To Millicent, I think a kiss was tantamount to an engagement.

[Nancy]

When my cousin got his girlfriend pregnant in the 60's, it was   "we know what you've been doing"; it was a shameful thing to be fooling around and then getting caught.  Even when I went to nursing school in the early 70's, my then boyfriend(now husband) was not allowed above the first floor of my dorm.

I remember those days too, Carol.  When I was in college in the late 1970s, we were not allowed to have "boys' in the dorm (as if that stopped us).   I remember a friend of my mother's who was pregnant and she wrote a coat in the middle of the summer to hide her increasingly big stomach!  And this was in a fairly progressive environment.

Nancy

[ROBINV]

No way did Millicent go all the way with Forbes.  He probably wouldn't even have tried to do THAT.  The kiss they exchanged was scandalous enough in Millicent's eyes, and his betrayal extreme--he was legally married to another woman and engaged to her--and kissing her!  My God, that had to constitute her going straight to hell.  

On the other hand. . .SPOILER. . .








They will get married, and I always wondered if they ever consummated their marriage before all hell broke loose.

Love, Robin

[kuanyin]

No, I don't think they did, but I don't think it as highly unlikely as some of the others. I agree she was an innocent without any real idea about what could happen between a man and woman.

What occurred to me more than once during their dalliances, was that Joshua was completely failing this poor girl. His role should have been to protect her from young men who would want to get her alone. Especially from penniless young men who could seduce her and then have to accepted as her bridegroom, when they wouldn't have been otherwise.

While it was not accepted by society, even upper class girls could lose their virginity in ANY time period. It certainly would have been covered up if at all possible. But I think most in the chaperone position were wise enough to realize that prevention was the best route.

[jennifer]

When i think about how clueless i was as a teenager
in the 70s  (learned from peers and when i think of some of the things i was told!) Millicent would have died of shock if he had tried anything in 1796 when i went to college in 1974 we had coed dorms  but my nursing school i went to the next year still had locked doors and NO MEN (there were three men students that they put in another part of the buildling) so there were a lot of differances back!!( It was weird in my college dorm someone could stay over 23 hours and 59 minutes(they had to be signed out for a minute then could be signed back in LOL)

jennifer

[Dr. Eric Lang]

Great discussion thread for speculation.

One of the advantages of having been filmed in an era of strict cencorship is that the audience is free to interpret this situation to their own liking. It's not all spelled out for us, let alone shown in graphic detail like it would be today - and I prefer it that way.

As for Millicent and her sense of propriety - it's true she's a stickler for it, but this is a pre-Victorian era and Collinsport is something of a savage land in 1795. Any town with that many hookers and sailors patrolling the docks couldn't have been too puritanical. I think there was a period prior to the Victorian era where sexual mores were becoming more relaxed.

[Luciaphile]

As for Millicent and her sense of propriety - it's true she's a stickler for it, but this is a pre-Victorian era and Collinsport is something of a savage land in 1795. Any town with that many hookers and sailors patrolling the docks couldn't have been too puritanical. I think there was a period prior to the Victorian era where sexual mores were becoming more relaxed.

Yes, and no.  Things weren't quite as puritanical as they became in the Victorian era(and remember that's a huge chunk of time), but certain things were still a given.

Proper young ladies did not:

1. Walk around after dark
2. Go any kind of a distance without a suitable escort
3. Spend time alone with men
4. Have sex with men to whom they were not married

Now, some of these rules weren't strictly enforced--witness Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice who surprised the Bingleys by walking through 3 miles of fields to visit her ill sister.  The Bingley women turned their noses up at it, but it was not thought improper.

And of course, you need to be caught at any breaking the rules, for it to be a problem, but still . . . this wasn't quite as licentious as all that.

What the not-so-proper young women and men did is another story entirely.

Luciaphil