Oblate

[Terrance Flaherty]

Oh blah dee Oblate ah! 
With a couple of kids running in the yard of Mason and Molly Dixon...ha
ha ha...ha...
Happy ever after in the market place...



Dixon raises the pregnancy. And, let's assume the shapes are
astronomical and not gynecological. If Dixon is with child, and if it is
a honeymoon baby, how much would he be showing? Maybe we are only seeing
the symptoms of pregnancy, fatigue, mood swings, food cravings, weight
gain. 

But these aren't supposed to be happening to a man. 
Are they? 

Well, if we go back in literature we discover that male pregnancy is
quite common. 

On stages all over America today, in American novels, in  Shakespeare's
Plays, in dramas of antiquity.  

We can go way back to the ancient satires, where humorous liaison
between men and gods, or gods and gods, i.e., Horus and Seth, produce a
male pregnancy. 

The gendered stuff in M&D is quite interesting. 

I was thinking, Dixon and Mason go off sailing with a boat full of
seaman, but the are thinking that they will find the exotic woman ready
and easy. What does that say about the woman? Or, what does that say
about what reasonable men think about woman? Isn't it ironic that ships
loaded with "criminal" woman show up? As if Mason's humiliation at the
hangings were not quite sufficient to disman him. Austra's conversation
with Mason about English woman is quite Modern, feminist even. 
Add Philadelphia Girls?  Why their all decked out in silks, but look out
for the compass needle. Brae must have loved that one. And I can agree
with Jbor, a joke about Dixon and Mason being very close buddies (yes,
sorry about that, the boys are called sailors, but not in Chapter 42,
swab, mates, sailors...), is a joke and no more and no less. 
What about the boys on the sailing ships way back in the early chapters? 

Ives talks about Dixon's sexual appetite and that's fine, but he says
the Milk Maids will all be quite willing to spill the milk with him. Oh
come now, what has Dixon got that gets this milk maids pumping? 

In history, men appropriated women's knowledge and while it may make
perfect sense for women to take care of women, males took over the care
of pregnant women. In the process they did raise the status of female
midwives (although the successful midwife is often a male--Plato, while
the midwife that fails, is female--Joyce). In the old days, and still,
in some states in this Union, men held that a women's womb might get out
and have a little fun while its owner was far away at war or some other
stupid adventure. So, best to marry a young female and get her pregnant.
Gee, just what guys want, young woman with whom they may have lots of
sex so as to get them pregnant. 

And, being men, smart and reasonable, in the old days, guys wanted to
take all the credit. So, far from glorifying motherhood, the Greeks, for
example, denigrated women's role, going so far as to deny them a
significant share in reproduction, and appropriated their procreativity
through the metaphor of male pregnancy (Socrates the midwife of ideas)
and the representation of pederasty as a means of completing the
necessary
masculinization of males. 

And Mason and Dixon are splitting up again. So, that fidelity thing is
symbolical. 



"For the Greeks, giving birth to actual infants, very likely ephemeral
creatures ... did not compare in importance with giving birth to 'real
men' (or to poems, laws or philosophical truths, all accomplishments of
men)."  

This lack of interest in young children is reflected in the failure to
develop a pediatrics...

Now, Mason has children. He had a wife. He is depressed and he seems to
have lost his sexual appetite. A symptom of depression. "Tis against
Nature." hmmmmmm, what is? His not seeking a wife if course. Well, maybe
he has already found one and he's not going to cheat on him. And her, of
course, because he will remain faithful to his ghostly dead wife too.