Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 November 23

= November 23 =

How common did American women wear pants in the late 1970s and early 1980s?
This movie is inspired by a true story. In one scene, it features an American family, presumably as a way to contrast the previous scene with the wartorn Cambodian family. The (white) American family apparently has all the men and boys wearing ties, clean shirts, and pants and the women and girls wear pretty dresses, puffy sleeves, and elegant hairstyles. Is this family considered traditional and conservative during that time in American fashion history, or is this really how most middle-class people dressed? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The devil is in the details here. It's the entire dress style of the family, women and men, that reveals that this family is supposed to be conservative Christians of the type that (as the trope of the time went) would sponsor a family fleeing Communism. The women's clothing and hair would have been seen as highly unelegant at the time - dowdy, drab, dated, old-fashioned, and ugly, as if they were deliberately downplaying their attractiveness by dressing like Shirley Temple c. 1936. They are also overly formally dressed in the scenes I saw - the average American family would not play football in those clothes. (For one thing, they'd be risking damaging them.) --NellieBly (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Most American women would have worn pants and skirts interchangeably during that time period, depending on personal preference. My mom would have been in her late 20s-early 30s in that time period, with two young children, and she went years without wearing a skirt or dress; though women I knew at that time would either always wear skirts, or sometimes, or never; women in pants, skirts, or dresses attracted no attention or comment of any sort.  It was pretty open.  1980s in fashion and 1970s in fashion will help to understand how women dressed during this time period in America.  -- Jayron  32  01:34, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I see that the clothing worn by women is more of a personal preference thing than a cultural thing. In that case, I think one may rightly describe the family in the movie as conservative, because they wear modest clothing. In The Babysitters Club, which is set in 1980s and 1990s, there are a lot of girls wearing pants, so you can guess that pants were extremely common among women during the '80s and '90s. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:45, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know that lack of pants = conservative. Hippies and Deadheads and other counterculture groups often have women who don't wear much pants, they would hardly be described as "conservative".  I'm not sure you can tell what someone's political preference is by analyzing their leg coverings.  -- Jayron  32  01:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * What is the name of "this movie"? μηδείς (talk) 04:29, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It's called "The Girl Who Spelled Freedom". --NellieBly (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting. All I can say is in the early 70's my mother usually wore jeans around the house, and slacks or a dress to church and dresses on evenings out.  She was what we used to call a housewife.  Our teachers mostly wore slacks, which  made sense, since they had playground duty during recess after lunch.  Jamie Sommers, an early crush of mine, wore bell-bottom slacks.  Waitresses at Denny's wore skirts, and cooks wore pants, regardless of gender.  I'll agree with Jayron. μηδείς (talk) 06:05, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

definition of Spain
When did the name Spain come to mean "Iberia minus Portugal"? Did Spain include Portugal before, say, 1469 (when the queen of Castile & Leon married the king of Aragon)? Who first adopted the title King of Spain? —Tamfang (talk) 01:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Formally, the "Kingdom of Spain" did not exist until 1700, when the War of the Spanish Succession concluded and allowed the Spanish Bourbon monarchy to assume rule. Prior to that, constitutionally, Spain was formally a Personal union of crowns, consisting primarily of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, which were officially independent states prior to the 18th century, a situation EXACTLY analogous to England and Scotland prior to the 1707 Act of Union.  The situation was extremely complex, as the Spanish monarch also ruled, at various times, states both in Iberia and outside of it, including Portugal and Navarre, but also Sicily and Southern Italy, the Low Countries, all of modern Germany, Austria, various Islands in Mediterranean, huge swaths of the Americas, the West and East Indies, the Philippines, etc.  Some of these territories were subordinate to the Castillian and Aragonese crowns (for example, the Italian possessions were under the Crown of Aragon), while others were entirely distinct from those two crowns, coming via inheritance or election (such as the vast Burgundian territories that came with the Habsburgs, some parts of which became the Spanish Netherlands, or the Holy Roman Empire, etc.)  If you really want to nail down when Spain became Spain de jure as opposed to just "That part of Iberia that isn't Portugal" in an informal sense, the answer lies in the Nueva Planta decrees, which formally abolished the ancient constitutions of the separate crowns and established Spain as a single, unitary state, in the early 1700s.  Prior to this time, "Spain" was an informal way to refer to the lands of Habsburg Spain which retained their individual identities formally.  Prior to the Habsburgs, there was no single Spanish monarch; Castile and Aragon and Navarre (and often Leon, Galicia, etc.) had distinct monarchs and institutions and were completely independent.  -- Jayron  32  02:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * To be somewhat more precise, Spain shares the Iberian peninsula with Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra, and includes the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, and the towns of Ceuta and Melilla on the African continent, as well as the enclave of Llívia within the borders of France. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Just curiously (and only because I can't find it), is there a term for "Iberian Spain" that is analogous to Metropolitan France (aka "L'Hexagon") or the Contiguous United States; that is the traditional Iberian Mainland of Spain, absent the small parts of the Spanish state which are officially incorporated but not on the European Mainland? -- Jayron  32  02:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's España peninsular (or España continental). España ibėrica refers to the Peninsula during pre-Roman times, named after the Iberians. μηδείς (talk) 03:24, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The etymology is uncertain. My favorite theory is that mentioned by Strabo, that the Phonecians called the Island "land of the rabbits" I-Shpania which Will Durant supports, suggesting that hyraxes were mistaken for rabbits. μηδείς (talk) 03:33, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The final political separation of Spain and Portugal was in 1640 (after a 60-year period when Spanish kings also ruled Portugal). AnonMoos (talk) 03:10, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * However, prior to that point there was a general understanding that "Castile and Aragon" was a distinct cultural and political area than was "Portugal", in some ways analogous to the way that "Britain" is a distinct political and cultural area than is "Ireland". Both before and after the Portuguese-Spanish union of crowns, Portugal was seen as a distinct cultural and political state than other Iberian states.  Also interesting is that, in the same way that the "English" parts of the UK are seen as exerting political and cultural hegemony over the British Isles (and the various sorts of backlash that causes, vis-a-vis devolution in Scotland and Wales and N. Ireland, Scottish Nationalism, etc.), Castile holds the same place within Spain that England does within the UK: The various other Iberian/Spanish groups (Aragon-Catalonian and Navarre-Basque) see themselves as oppressed groups under the Castillian-Spanish hegemony in the same way that other British groups (Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, etc.) see themselves in the UK, at times.  -- Jayron  32  03:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Although Catalonia was under the throne of Aragon, the Aragonese and the Catalans shouldn't be grouped together ethnically, Catalan is closer to Provençal and Aragonese to Castilian. The Galegos or Galicians speak a dialect closer to Portuguese than to Castilian and it is the Galicians, the Basques, and the Catalans who have the biggest drive toward autonomy/independence from Madrid. μηδείς (talk) 03:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a note that we have an article on Peninsular Spain, although to my surprise, it was only created this year. Nyttend (talk) 06:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe the analogy "The Netherlands" vs "Germany & Austria & Switzerland" would be more germane (if you think of "Ireland" as Celtic) since in Spain everyone (except the Basques) is (whether Ibero-Romance or Gallo-Romance) fairly closely related. Other than that, regarding Portugal going a bit its own way even before the union of Castile and Aragon, as far as I know, Jayron is completely right. At Las Navas de Tolosa where Castile, Aragon and Navarre kicked some Almohad butt, guess who wasn't there? Contact Basemetal   here  14:17, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * To address the question of what the word Spain meant before 1469, our article on Hispania shows that that name was applied to the whole Iberian Peninsula in Roman times, and also makes the unreferenced claim that "With time, the name Hispania was used to describe the collective names of the Iberian Peninsula kingdoms of the Middle Ages, which came to designate all of the Iberian Peninsula plus the Balearic Islands." According to Thomas F. Glick's Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (2005) pp. xx-xxi, it's more complicated:
 * In the high middle ages Arab writers referred to all territory south of the Duero (and later any Iberian territory held by Muslims) as al-Andalus, whereas Spain (Isbāniyya) referred to the peninsula a[s] a geographical entity...For the Christians, on the other hand, Spain (Spania) was more of a cultural concept defining broadly the area which had fallen within the Visigothic sphere of influence, sometimes even including the region of Narbonne, on the northern side of the Pyrenees. According to Castro, the Romance form España was first used by those living in Septimania and Provence to refer to Muslim-held territory, the origin of refugees (Hispani) seeking a home in Carolingian lands.
 * There's no mention of Portugal being excluded from any of these definitions, so I can't help you as to when that happened. --Antiquary (talk) 12:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Portugal had at least some recognition apart from the rest of Hispania early in the Roman Empire, though, see Lusitania. -- Jayron  32  20:31, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It looks like Portugal was created by the will of Ferdinand I of León and Castile in 1065, who carved out a province of Galicia in the west (setting part of the north-south boundary). The sons then turned on the one who held Galicia and partitioned it, though I'm not quite sure that's what set the northern border.  The elongated north-south shape was from the Reconquista, a sort of international jihadist movement where foreign fighters poured in to combat the Muslims.  See also History of Portugal (1139–1279). Wnt (talk) 14:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * This might be politically correct but please do not compare the people who fought the Muslim aggressors who had occupied Spain in 711 and the "international jihadist movement". For one thing the jihadists have killed more Muslims than they have killed supposed "Crusaders" and more Muslims than those "Crusaders" have ever killed. I know the BBC (an extremely high quality news outlet when it forgets about political correctness) likes to do that. In a documentary about Islam a few years ago on the World Service (radio) Owen Bennett-Jones compared the Knights of Malta who were resisting a Turkish attack to Al-Qaida. Lisa Jardine in an article on a completely unrelated art history subject casually mentioned the supposedly "unprovoked" attack of Charles V on Turkish Algiers. Unprovoked? The Turks had been waging aggressive war in the Mediterranean and in the Balkans for a few centuries. What were they doing before Vienna? Or did the Austrians resist Ottoman conquest in an "unprovoked" manner? Please. This is a reference desk. Let's refrain from politically correct asides and stick to facts. Contact Basemetal   here  14:39, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, you're talking about a four century gap after the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. If a group of Native Americans ran into Indianapolis today and scalped the mayor for invading their lands, would you call that self defense?  (That's only two centuries)  In any case I was not really seeking to condone or condemn ancient events I little understand; the similarity of having a holy war backed largely by the migration of foreign adventurers looking to fight for their faith just struck me. Wnt (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't wanna pursue this private conversation here at the RD. If you're curious what I have to respond to Wnt go to his talk page. My point that we should, if possible, refrain from tendentious "analogies", at least at the RD, still stands Contact Basemetal   here  16:50, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The easy answer to the above question is that Hispania is the older name known to history compared to Iberia. This is covered in some of the sources given above. μηδείς (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

García
How did a Basque name come to be the most common surname in Spain? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 21:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
 * See substratum and the birds and the bees. μηδείς (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm familiar with those concepts, yes. The majority of Spain was never inhabited by Basque or Vasconic peoples, so it's non-trivial why a Basque name would become so common throughout the whole country. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 00:19, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Look at the gif to the right. Castilian probably has the strongest susbstrate influence from Basque, cf the /f/ > /h/ mutation. Given that Castillian went from being one of the smallest dialects of pre-reconquista Spain to by far the major dialect, its bringing of (Fernandez>) Hernandez and Garcia along with it is not surprising. See also, Ibero-Romance languagesμηδείς (talk) 00:30, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * One thing worth noting is the way that the Nevarrese/Basque ruling elite worked their way into the royal houses of the other (Romance-based) Iberian kingdoms. For example, the Jiménez dynasty was of Basque origin, and had members that, at various times, were kings of ALL of the Iberian states.  It isn't like the Basque people stayed holed up in their little corner of the Bay of Biscay and never intermingled.  Navarre was inextricably linked to the noble families of both Spain and France, and Basque-derived names show up commonly on both sides of the Pyrenees.  -- Jayron  32  00:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have any sources backing up this claim of a Basque substrate in Castilian, other than the common wisdom of the /f/>/h/ change? Larry Trask, one of the foremost scholars of Basque, argued against the substrate hypothesis, as you can see here. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 00:53, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It'll be easy enough if you really want one, to find sources mentioning this supposition, as well as the f>h mutation in Gascon, which borders the Basque territory but which is not directly related to Castilian. But the way your question is worded, it sounds like you are looking for proof of this supposition, and I'll concede that won't be forthcoming. μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Our article on the surname says that the name is a patronymic (a name originally indicating the name of a person's father), and that García was a common personal name in medieval Spain. How this was so is not hard to understand.  There were fashions in names in the Middle Ages just as there are today.  Since the Castilian-speaking community was in frequent contact with Basque speakers, and since there was plenty of migration from the Basque region into the (expanding) Kingdom of Castile, it isn't surprising that Castilian speakers became familiar with, and fond of, an originally Basque name.  It also isn't surprising that a common male personal name became a common surname when patronymics were adopted as surnames.  Since Castile came to dominate all of Spain, Castilian Garcías would have spread throughout the country. The prestige of a Castilian name would have attracted women in conquered regions such as Andalusia, and so the name would have spread there as well, and thence to the Americas.  Marco polo (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * And here I thought I had said the same thing with "See substratum and the birds and the bees". μηδείς (talk) 22:19, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a general tendency for Basque surnames to be more widespread than would statistically be expected? If not, the question is about at the same level as "How come a Basque won the Spanish lottery last week?". Besides aren't the percentages of and the differences between the various surnames small enough that the "vagaries of history" should be a sufficient explanation. The second most common name here is Fernández. Can we assume that because it has an initial 'f' it is not Castilian? (Incidentally where does the f / h isogloss run?) Note there's also Hernández but Fernández is about three times more common. My point with Fernández being that you could ask the same question about any regional name that is more common than you would expect and one would have to give in each case the same non-answer, unless of course you uncover a general trend for regional names to be more common than expected, in which case there might be something to explain. Contact Basemetal   here  11:46, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

first man to do sororate marriage and first woman to do levirate marriage
Was Jacob, Joseph's father the first man to do sororate marriage? Also, I want to know who was the first woman to do levirate marriage? 70.29.34.155 (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2014 (UTC)Musty
 * Are you asking for actual anthropology, or according to the Tanakh? μηδείς (talk) 00:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * First I had to look up Sororate marriage to now what you're talking about. That's so prosaic. They should call it a "Clementine" marriage. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:30, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It seems surprising that the "Sororate marriage" doesn't include any mention of the decades long controversy in Victorian England about whether marrying one's deceased wife's sister was either highly suitable and appropriate or disgusting incest. Will add a link to Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907 to that article... AnonMoos (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Please note that there's no biblical statement that Jacob was the first. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 24 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Historically speaking, as I'm sure you are aware, we cannot know when these practices emerged, probably before the earliest written sources. I'm sure that forms of levirate and sororate marriage can be found in a variety of ancient mythological and legendary sources, but establishing both the historicity and the dates of these marriages is problematic. The only way I can answer your question is within the context of biblical chronology (though of course, as Nyttend noted above, the Bible does not make any claims about who practised it first). No, the Bible does not give any examples of sororate marriage before Jacob/Israel. The first biblical example of a woman involved in levirate marriage is Tamar. - Lindert (talk) 13:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC)