The Thomas Jefferson Hour; #0333; Personal Ads

Welcome to the new Thomas Jefferson Hour, a weekly conversation with the third president of the United States. Please join us as our host Phil Crystal speaks with Thomas Jefferson portrayed by humanity scholar Clay Jenkinson. In today's program, Mr. Jefferson struggles with what we call today personal ads. The Thomas Jefferson Hour is produced by High Plains Public Radio and New Enlightenment Radio Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the search for truth in their tradition of Thomas Jefferson. Welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, your weekly conversation with the third president of the United States. Good day to you, Mr. Jefferson. Good day to you, my dear citizen. Sir, we're going to look at popular culture today, perhaps more than we usually do. We usually deal with the weighty and momentum revolution issues of time. But today we're going to look at something which is a very important issue in our time and I'm sure it was in your time as well. It's the issue of how do people of marriageable age meet? Now, in our time, there are all sorts of services, dating services that bring together potential

couples, people are given the opportunity to look at videotapes they leave messages behind. In your time, how did young people meet? They met in church. They met at the theater. They met at public gatherings, there were picnics and events that occurred on courthouse lawns. They met in extended families, you know, the average family was an extremely extended one in my day and so every family then was constantly bringing in new people, new friends, in laws and so on. And so there were natural communities in my day. We were an extremely decentralized population. So people looked to their own parish or their own village or the farm district in which they lived for their basic acquaintance in life. Now the wealthier people and I was born into that class, I was born into the lower gentry. The wealthier people went to Williamsburg every year for what was called the season.

Just as there was the season in London during the 18th century when all of the fashionable people came and went to the opera and to the salons and had dinner parties and so on. So there was a season at Williamsburg, it often coincided with the House of Delegates being in session and therefore when the season was going on there would be balls and receptions and dinner parties and people would have a chance to meet each other under those auspices. How did you meet your wife Martha, Mr. Jefferson? Well, let me back up just a little. My first love was a woman named Rebecca Burrell, I met her at the College of William & Mary. She was not of course a student there, the only young man were students there at that time. But she was in Williamsburg, she was connected to an important Virginia family and was there for the season and I met her socially and fell in love with her. Well that would be a very typical mating possibility for my era, surrounding the state capital

or a college town or a cultural capital like Philadelphia or Boston. And you danced with her, dancing was of course one of the few ways that young men and young women could be in one another's reach. Exactly, it was the only physical contact that occurred between young men and young women would be on the dance floor and the dances were nothing like those of your era. They were stately and the most that everyone would touch another would be to touch the hand or to maybe touch the shoulder but there was no groping, there was no full body contact of any sort and these were also heavily supervised events and the emphasis was on gracefulness and order rather than animalism and lust. Dancing the minuet. For minuet of course and we all had dancing masters, the gentry would have dancing masters come and live with them in their parish or even in their home and teach, drawing, dancing, playing musical instruments such as the piano forte or the violin or cello.

And so we would have these experts, these masters who would circulate through a district and teach those who were able and willing some of the arts of manners of the period and meeting over music was one way. So that was Rebecca Burrell. Then I went, this didn't work out as you well know. I proposed to her and I stammered and was completely incoherent and she didn't really even understand that I was proposing an eventual marriage to her. I wanted to pursue my studies for five or six years first and then perhaps go off to Europe and maybe Egypt but once I got back from all of that then I thought it might be useful to marry her. Can't understand why she didn't wait eight or nine years for you, Mr. Jefferson. Well one wants to be prepared for life before one enters into these arrangements but my heart was broken. And then a few years later I met Martha Whale's skeleton. She was a widow and she was the wife of a former classmate of mine from William and Mary bathed her skeleton. So I knew her through that connection and the gentry in Virginia in my time, the plantation,

tidewater gentry was really quite small, a few hundred individuals and these individuals, girls and pages and Randolph's and so on, Nelson's, Lee's, these families would meet at house parties and in Williamsburg and later in Richmond and in these gatherings young people would be introduced to each other and that's how romance would spark. I met my future wife when she was still married to my friend, Martha, skeleton and once she had been widowed after a decent period, I became one of her suitors and I was one of many and our lifelong love affair was kindled by a common interest in the fine arts and particularly music and there are traditions of our playing duets together. And there certainly was an intense relationship between you.

You read the novel Tristan Shandy together. That is correct. Together we, we of course, converse together, we planned a life together, we had children together, we played music together, we had conversations together, it was very, I suppose it would be considered dull in your time and it certainly was civil. And you lost her unfortunately at a rather early age. You made a promise to Martha that you would not marry again and you honored that promise. Had you decided to marry again, what sorts of characteristics would you have looked for in another spouse? Well, at that point I had children. My wife had had six children, there was still a number, still alive at the time of her death, four of them and I would have wanted a mother for those children. Did Martha have any children from her first marriage that you were raising as well? She had a son but the son died before we were married. I see. She came without children but with a fair amount of grief into our own marriage and then had

six children and left children, orphans to fortune at the time of her death on the sixth of September 1782 and had I chosen to re-marry, I would have wanted more than anything else, a woman appropriate to raise those young children and I had no son so I probably would have wanted a woman who was healthy from a reproductive standpoint. I would have wanted somebody that I knew this time could produce me a son and I would never make this comparison go any farther than this but just as Henry VIII, the king of England, wanted a woman who could provide him a male child. I would have wanted that to be one of the concerns my wife was frail. She had difficult times holding a pregnancy and giving birth. Her recoveries from birthing were very slow and sometimes dramatic and dangerous and I married her out of love but at a certain point in one's life love while important becomes

subordinate to other issues that raising existing children and creating more of them. Mr. Jefferson, you lived a long life, did you see the customs of young people meeting one another change in your lifetime, near the end of your life where they essentially the same as they had been when you were young? Yes, although the Jacksonian era of American history was clearly coming out, keep in mind when I speak about all of this, I'm speaking as a Virginia planter and aristocrat. The customs for more common people and I don't mean that in a moral sense but only in a demographic sense would have been somewhat different from those of the gentry. There was still a high level of restraint by your standards but I'm speaking about a fairly rarefied portion of the social scene in their late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was loosening somewhat but nevertheless was the case that let's say the pool of women

for a young man of marriageable age was quite small. The pool of women who were eligible, socially, financially, remember marriages were largely property settlements in my time in a way that they simply aren't in yours. The number of women that were really eligible to any single individual was quite small. So the customs basically hold, well, 200 years later the world is much different, Mr. Jefferson and nowadays men and women work full-time, busy, busy lives and find that there are no opportunities or few opportunities to meet marriageable people. And it has become a real source, I think of a consternation, of course, it's become a matter of enterprise on the part of those who have found ways to bring young people together. But nowadays lots of people meet by way of personal ads. I have members of my own family who have met through personal ads.

Let me read a couple of examples to you and you're saying that the people don't meet face-to-face, they meet initially by words. They meet by words and then if they like what the other one is saying, perhaps they'll talk on the telephone, then if they like what the other is saying, they might arrange to meet somewhere. They do this without having any visual understanding of the other person. In many cases, no visual understanding, although now, of course, a videotape has made it possible for people to actually see someone describing him or herself. I'm already feeling anxious about what you're describing. I can't imagine that this is an intelligent way for mating to unfold. Well, I think it has come about simply because it's just too difficult for people. I mean, I think they still try the same places. They still go to church. They still go to theater. They go to clubs and parties and hop to taverns. Do they go to taverns? I think they go to taverns a lot. That would be a very poor place to meet a future spouse. I would think so.

It's a really problematic thing, though, and I think many people have had such bad experiences in taverns and other places that they have decided that the verbal approach is in many cases the best. Let me read just a couple of examples of what personal ads in our time sound like. Give professional woman 30-something, good sense of humor, non-smoker, wishes to meet financially responsible, straight man, 30-55, for friendship and possible romance. I love poetry, music, candlelight dinners, and hikes in the mountains. Looks important, but not too important. Looking more for my soulmate than Mr. Wright. Oh, my goodness. I'm blushing for America. In another example, workaholic businessman 45, sensitive, active, and witty, wishes to meet lean, attractive woman for dinner dates and possibly more. Must be willing to travel to Paris, Prague, Rome, and Hong Kong. Loves tennis, backgammon, reading by the fire, and smores.

Fit woman a must. I'm a Paul. First of all, the woman who wrote the first one is a slut. Any woman that would advertise herself in this way shows a complete lack of minimal civility and should not be allowed into polite society. My goodness. I have that. She sounded rather good. Mr. Jefferson. Well, I sort of woman would ever do this. Has she known modesty? Has she no sense of a woman who has been thwarted in meeting a marriageable man? What's a soulmate? I find that an interesting term. You're asking me to define the term? I don't know. You live in this area. You're the one who has trotted this out. I think a soulmate is one with whom one shares at so many levels that one feels vitally connected. Well, I find that rather attractive once you take the canned terminology out of it. Yes. Of course, we need to have somebody, surely you'd know one would mate for lust. People mate because they find a deep compatibility with another woman.

You mean no one would admit to mating for lust? So these people write these themselves, do they, and then they post them in a public square somewhere? And I suspect that if one were modest, one would never get a phone call. I would never call that woman. And a man who advertises himself as a workaholic. Is that a term I don't need to define for you? I don't like that term, because that suggests that there's a disease of working too hard. You can never work too hard. You can never work too hard. You must always be doing. Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, and you set the standard for that. Well, of course, and you know, there's a reason why we're having this conversation. If I had been a man relaxing on the deck with a slut like that, I would never have achieved a minimum of the things that I did. But maybe she would be very good at raising children. Your children? Well, that's another concern. And producing other children does not mention children, I don't think. She does not say that she's looking to raise a large family. Under decent means.

Well, okay, Mr. Jefferson, you're beginning to beg the question. If you were going to write a personal, to attract a woman, what would you say? What would I say? Well, I don't know, you know, this is a considerable leap. You mean we have caught you speechless for the first time in the history of this program? I'm shocked by the utter loss of community of your era. People apparently have no community, so they attempt to create one by random meetings with random people. Surely nobody would tell the truth in an ad of this sort. I mean, surely everybody is posturing in some sense of the term or other. I wouldn't trust anything that was printed in such a newspaper. I don't know, I don't know where to begin. I'm a... Well, let me ask this question. The Declaration of Independence seeks mate. Seeks mate willing to start second family.

Inventor of the mold board of least resistance seeks occasional salon conversations with amiable intelligence and civil woman. Something like that. Just 43 grieving fond husband after marriage characterized by 10 years of unchecked happiness seeks companion to conduct meteorological studies twice a day. Is that sort of the sense of these things? Well, let me ask you this. It's your showing... I know, I've been quite earnest. I mean, these are... If I had to say who I am, I'm a widower. I'm a scientist. I'm a planter. I'm a man of letters. I'm an architect. I believe... I'm not a frivolous man. I'm not much of a relaxing sort of fellow. I don't frequent taverns and I despise those who do.

I don't think that any woman should dance after she's had her first baby. I don't like cards or gambling of any sort. I don't like spiritous liquors on the property or dice. Games with balls are absolutely appalling to you. So I want someone who wants to grow a hyacinth. Somebody who would keep good account records of the kitchen. Somebody who can raise young children and teach them Latin. But I don't think that I could find such a being in a newspaper. I'm an awkward man, you know. I don't know how to approach women. I would think the newspaper would be a good way for you because you write so felicitously and speak with such difficulty. But as you all know, the gap between what I wrote and what I actually did in life is a considerable one, and I'm guessing that's true of each of these individuals also. If I were doing this, I would be disposed to do one of two things. To talk about the passions of my life, which were wine and architecture and gardening and

agriculture and data collection. But Mr. Jefferson, you're also the author of the dialogue between head and heart. And my head is in the ascendancy, sir. It is at this very moment, but it was not always thus. With Maria Cosway, you spoke the kind of language that could be put felicitously in the newspaper and prove quite inspiring to members of the opposite sex. Well, I did describe the ideal woman in that letter. As a matter of know, you've jogged my memory. I said of Mrs. Cosway, and I mean this of my ideal woman that she has, quote, that softness of disposition, which is the ornament of her sex and the charm of mine. In other words, that softness of disposition, which brings out her best qualities, but has a charming or mesmerizing effect on the male sex. I like soft women. I like womanly women, women who are delicate and shy and blush easily and have a sweetness of temperament, not Abigail Adams in short.

Butting politicians need not apply. Women with tempers or women with strong wills or women who like to speak a lot or women who are sprightly need not apply. I want a woman who is deeply sensuous as a soft being of another gender, and I don't want any confusion of gender. Look and raise children. Yes, well, either raise my children or bear new ones for me, but yes, she, I mean, for me, and I speak this seriously, in a marriage, a woman is primarily the mother of one's children. That is her work in life. And that's what I would seek. And I would never. He's the educator of the children, the one who. The nurse of children gives them their vision. The one who teaches them their moral consciousness, their primary mentor in life is their mother. And I don't want gender crossover. I want all be the man, and I will ride my horses through the hills, and she will be the woman, and she will raise children in the nursery.

Mr. Jefferson, we've got to take a short break, but when we come back, we'll explore further the role of women in your society and in your ideal woman. Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, as unlikely as it may seem.

We are talking with Mr. Jefferson today about how men and women met in his own time, and we have moved on to the phenomenon in our own time called the personal ad. And Mr. Jefferson, you're not cooperating very much as we try to get you to craft your own personal ad. So let me just ask you about certain characteristics in a person of the opposite sex, and you tell me how important these things are, and elaborate as much as you'd like. I think we're going to have to end up writing your personal as a group activity here. I did pledge never to remarry, so you can do this, but it will not lead to fruition. Very well, sir. How important is beauty in a member of the opposite sex? A woman needs to be handsome. In other words, I would find it hard to marry a ugly woman, but she need not be beautiful. I'm attracted to beautiful women.

Maria Cosway was, so I suppose the most beautiful woman that I ever met. Angelica Skylar Church was an extremely beautiful woman. I am susceptible to female beauty. Both by beauty we mean symmetry and proportionality and a handsome figure and sparkling eyes. Things like that are quite important, but they should not be determinative. And so I would say that, and I think I'd probably speak for men of all ages and saying this, that a woman needs to fit within some relatively wide boundaries of beauty, acceptable beauty, but that this is not the most important factor, as long as she conforms in some sense to that wide swath of what one considers beautiful, that's enough. And luckily, different men are attracted to different sorts of women. And the Latin phrase, digustibus non-estisputandum, tastes are not to be disputed, really do hold some men like small, petite women, other men like large, or Ruben-esque women, some

men like women who have slender figures and others like Bucksome women. Unfortunately, it's almost as if Adam Smith understood this, that there's a natural way in which supply meets demand. And a woman that I might find completely unattractive might overwhelm someone like James Madison. I mean, Dolly Madison was a voluptuous woman. And she was a little, to use one of your phrases from your time, she was a little over the top for me. I prefer more modesty, and you know, she wear these peacock hats, and she was very bosomy, and wore revealing clothing, and she was plump. I wouldn't have found that very attractive. I found her an attractive woman, but she didn't attract me, let's say. How important do you think being accomplished is? Absolutely important. She must draw.

She must make music. She must be able to pluck a chicken. She must be able to do household accounts. She must be able to sew or knit or do cross stitching. She must be capable of hosting a dinner party and running a small plantation, of course, and any woman who can't do any of that is not useful. I mean, the standard of marriage is the utilitarian. Yes, we want romance. But the utilitarian is the basis of life, and keep in mind, in my time, women couldn't shop. They had to produce food. A good mind. Less important. You don't want an imbecile. You don't want somebody described by Mary Wollstonecraft, you know, she was the British feminist, who was writing about the rights of women in the wake of the French Revolution. And she said that women were being trained in British life, particularly in the higher social orders to be, quote, ephemeron triflers. You don't want some babbling, inane, vacuous woman without an idea in her head.

My ideal woman knows a number of languages, and she can read Aristotle. But this is not critical. What you want is character. You want good sense and character, and they, in the long run, are much more important than deep intellectual accomplishment. And raising your daughters, you thought deep intellectual accomplishment was very important though. Did you not? Yes. And I do think that women need to be well educated, certainly, because, you know, there were no public schools in my time, and my daughter, Martha, for example, had 12 children. So she was the primary educator of all of her children, and I predicted once I said the chances that she marries a blockhead, I calculated 14 to one, which is precisely how it came out. And he was a wonderful and intelligent man, but he was not, his character was not solid enough for him to be available as an educator to his children. And so he was a brilliant governor of Virginia and an abolitionist and an able horseman and a good scientific planter, not a, not a financially successful one.

He had many amiable qualities and some genius. But from the point of view of educating our children, it was his wife, my daughter, who did that, and she needed, therefore, to be well educated herself. How important, sir, is dowry? Well, you've said that most marriages in your time or many marriages were economic unions. Dowries were important. If you want to get a sense of this, you should read a Jane Austen novel, because these were really blendings of family income, and keep in mind that income mattered more in my time than it does in yours, because people, there was a small number of occupations available to people of the middle and upper classes. And women were especially vulnerable, because a young woman could not work. If she worked, she would be considered a commoner or worse. And so a woman of the middle class and up, which would be most women, you know, the great majority of women were born without ever having the slightest expectation of working for

salary. And any woman who worked for salary would be considered despicable in polite circles. So a woman is economically dependent, first upon her family and then upon her mate. And therefore, the settlement of marriage is extremely important financially for a woman, in a way that it is not in your time, because a woman in your time can educate herself and go get a job as a nurse or as a college professor or as a judge or as a lawyer or as a business woman. These, none of these professions were available to women. So she had to be very careful, and her family was involved in this. This was not a free choice, because the first thing that a family wanted to know, and any Jane Austen novel will tell you this is, what is the financial settlement going to be? And so this was extremely important. I married a woman who was on paper wealthy, but in fact not. My wife, Martha Whale Skelton, was the daughter of John Whales, who was a flamboyant, and I think extraordinary planter near Williamsburg.

But he had a great estate, hundreds of slaves and thousands of acres of land. But he was so deeply in debt that he actually saddled me in debts that I was never able to extricate myself from. So when I married my wife, there was a large settlement, eventually 134 slaves came through that marriage to me, and thousands of acres of land, but they were all encumbered with debt. And in some sense, I would have been better off in life if I had never made that property connection with the Whales family, because the debts consumed me both in my finances and in the time I had to spend thinking about it. And I probably would have done better if I had married nobody or married somebody who came with a much more modest portion, but one unencumbered by debt. And though you wouldn't have discussed this in your own time, Mr. Jefferson, what about the physical aspect of marriage?

Sir, do you refer to sexual pleasure? Yes, although I wouldn't have referred to it quite like that, Mr. Jefferson. I would have preferred a little decorum. Well, such things are never spoken of. We have no idea. I mean, I don't know whether, for example, my closest friend in the world, James Madison, ever had sexual intercourse with his wife. I would never have known that. I presume that he did. But it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't, and it's not my business, and it's something that we would never have talked about. There would have been no smirking. There would have been no congratulations the day after a honeymoon. Nothing of this sort was ever talked about in polite society. Is it an important part of marriage, Mr. Jefferson? The fact that procreation is pleasurable is that important? You know, St. Augustine, with whom I never agree, 4th century Puritan and Christian theologian, said that in the pre-Lapsarian period, in Eden before the fall, Adam and Eve had sex, but they had no orgasms, because orgasm is a sign of the sinful pleasure of sexuality,

and in heaven there will be effortless coitus, where the man will release himself, rather than be overcome by animal pleasures. And I'm not quite that Puritanical, but I'm not so far away from it either. I believe that sex is creation, is pro-creation, and that, yes, of course, there's sexual pleasure. Nobody can deny that. That's, I suppose, how the creator perpetuates the race by giving us sufficient interest to get naked with another human being, which no rational being would ever do under any other circumstances whatsoever. But for this one purpose, yes, I suppose the pleasure is this added bonus for having to revert to animalism from time to time. And it's not that I didn't enjoy sexuality, I clearly did, but I look upon it as something to be somewhat sheepish about, and I would never have, first of all, you could never know whether there would be sexual pleasure, because there was very little pre-marital sex.

And so most people had their first sexual encounters on the night of their weddings. And if they didn't, they had their first sexual encounter with a woman they had to show respect to on the night of their weddings. And there was a certain awkwardness to this. And in my day, a woman would not be honored if she showed too much joy and bad. Her duty was to accept male sexual aggression, but not to encourage it or show her own sexual pleasures. No, I'm sure that this is a generalization that does not bear out entirely, but we were so heavily civilized in the age of the minuet that we detached ourselves from the kind of sexual release that is so common in your own area. I say we, Mr. Jefferson, but the Marquis de Saad was writing in your time. And look at him, the unspeakable bestie of Saadamite. Did you ever read his works?

Yes. But you didn't enjoy them. I won't say that, but I did not allow myself to enjoy them. Mr. Jefferson, let's move on. Let's leave sexuality behind us. Yes, of course, there's sexual pleasure, but any person, I mean, I'm speaking seriously not. Any man who thinks about sexual pleasure as one of the primary criteria by which he would determine how to mate is not only irrational, but he is a barbarian. If the woman that you choose for many other good reasons, I think the term you're using is soulmate. If that woman turns out to be sexually pleasurable and bad, so much the better. If she turns out to be tepid and quiet in the bedroom, this is no loss. If she enjoys it, then she's a slut. You know, the slut was, of course, used in somewhat different sense in my time. She was not necessarily slut within the bonds of marriage. But I would have found it quite difficult if my wife danced the menu at one hour and was some sort of a sex kitten and bed shortly thereafter.

I would have found that disquieting. I'm sure that was not the case. No. She had that softness of disposition, which is the ornament of her sex and the charm of a mind. Mr. Jefferson, bearing children, then is really the most important aspect of marriage in your time and economic partnership and hedonism if it exists at all is not to be encouraged. In our time, it's not uncommon for a couple to marry, bearing in mind the importance of economic issues even in this day and age, and sign what's called a prenuptial agreement, which means if the woman has lots of money, the man that she marries can lay no claim to any of it that she carries into the marriage or vice versa. How do you feel about that sort of an arrangement? Such things existed in my time under slightly different guys. We had entail, which is a way of protecting property against marriage.

So let's say that you fall in love with a woman that the estate has concerns about. This property could be entailed so that if you happen to die, the property would revert to the estate rather than to her family. These sorts of arrangements were quite common in my time. I'm against entail because I think it perpetuates feudal property codes, but I do think that what you're calling prenuptial agreements were actually routine in the 18th century, and they have, they went out of use for much of the 20th century, and they have made a slight comeback in your time. I think that anyone who believes that marriage is romance primarily has not really thought about it, and therefore marriage is an economic partnership, and it's a very serious one. For most people, most people listening to this program, that bond that they have formed or will form is the most important economic decision of their lives.

Now, I know that your popular culture doesn't like to think of it in that way, but it is nevertheless true, and therefore it's worth thinking through. And if you are, in any way, uncertain about the longevity of your marriage, then it's useful to have made preparations, at least in your own mind, about what would happen in the case of dissolution. Thank you, Mr. Jefferson. We've forced you to talk about things that are very difficult for you as we try to find out what a perfect mate would look like. Another tool that some actually use when seeking a compatible human being, with whom to share a life, is the astrological calendar chart, that the horoscopes have been discredited since the Renaissance, at least. And they are still taken seriously by many. No, you're in your democracy, you say, where people believe that the stars influence character.

Indeed. And your sign, you're an airy's, you're a sign. Now, how does this work? I don't even know how these signs work. Birth dates are, you know, surrounded by particular signs of the zodiac. So if you're born at a particular time, you are under one of the signs. And also, all right, there's a star, there's the Ursa Major or the Cassiopeia is in the ascendancy. I do understand how... Well, there are 12 signs of the zodiac. And so the moment I'm born, there was born on the universe that coordinates my character according to where stars might exist. Yes, the way that the stars existed at the time of your birth, it is believed, will influence who you are and how you live. Do you subscribe to this? No, I don't. But it's interesting to look at some of the characteristics that are attributed to your sign, airy's. For example, the ego of the average airy and is quite fragile in a need of constant reassurance. And what, the Alpha Centauri taught you this? The combination of the Aryans need to excel with his inclination to seek the romantic ideal,

usually means that he is attracted only to the best-looking partners. And this is the conjunction of Venus and Mars, who have produced this? Are you a scientist? I'm simply sharing with you popular culture. Are you telling me that there are... I mean, let's really have a conversation about this. Are you telling me that there is any widespread belief in your time, the most scientific century in human history, that stars influence human behavior? I know there are presidents of the United States that have had astrological charts drawn up. This is an impeachable offense. I bet my tongue, sir. I won't say what I'm thinking. No, I think there are many people who would suggest that the stars are a very important way of determining who we are and what will happen to us. In fact, it might be interesting to take another of our unscientific listener polls on this issue. So I've prejudiced the case by arguing that no rational being would ever believe this clap trap.

And if one does, then he or she is a slut. You know, if somebody came up to me at a dinner party, let's say Mrs. Cosway came up to me at a dinner party, the most beautiful woman that I ever met and said, hello, Mr. Jefferson, what's your sign? I would turn and walk away and never see that woman again in the course of my life because I could not take her seriously for one second longer. Oh, Mr. Jefferson, these are harsh words. Yeah, you're saying that many of your fellow citizens, albeit 200 years later, are fools. I will repeat what Samuel Johnson said repeatedly to his young protege, James Boswell. Clear your mind of can't. Thank you very much, Mr. Jefferson. And on that note, we will take another short break after which we will return with Clay Jenkinson, who will hopefully redeem himself. We may visit Mr. Jefferson's home page on the worldwide web at www.thyphengepherson.org. Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson Hour, your weekly conversation with the third president.

And if you thought there was no subject that might be sacred, then you know today you're on firm ground. Jefferson's personal ad. I never thought I never thought we'd reach this nader. And yet it's a very interesting lens to hold up. It's a mirror on our own culture. And you know, as we were preparing for this program, and I think I exaggerate the use of the English language by saying preparing. But as we created this program, we looked in the the want ads of the Reno News and Review, the local weekly newspaper. And I have to say, we are living in the end time. I think this is, we're not, we're not talking about a relaxed culture. We're talking about a culture that is completely free to see itself primarily through what

might be called sexual eccentricity. Indeed. And the eccentricity is bound. Now I'd grant you this is the alternative. So much paper. Perhaps if we looked at the personals that run periodically in the daily paper, they might not be nearly so far out. And I truly do have a couple of relatives who found good life partners through personal ads and not these. It's hard to imagine Jefferson writing a personal ad, but I do think author of the Declaration of Independence seeks amiable. I think that's a nice start. Who would respond to an ad like that? There aren't too many. I mean, the intimidation factor gets to be pretty high. I think Jefferson, I mean, obviously we're just having fun here, but it does tell us something very interesting that, and I think here's what it tells us, you know, if you've been reading books like bowling alone and so on, we're living through a time of radical individual alienation where people are not really connected any longer.

People are lonely. And because of the harassment laws and the problem of workplace relationships, people, that's a zone that has largely fallen out as a dating zone, and I think that's on the whole good thing. But that leaves with people who work 8, 10, 12 hours a day and then go home to their houses where they go into their garages and the door shuts behind them and they go into that house, which becomes a kind of fortress for the rest of the days. Which looks not out upon the street, but looks into the backyard, which is fenced in. And then they have their diversions of television in the internet or whatever. This does not create community culture, you know, in Jefferson's time, and still in Europe today, after supper, people stroll and they meet each other and they go, there were balls. If you read, I mean, the way they really get your mind around this issue is to read Jane Austin novels and whatever, whenever somebody comes into the neighborhood, somebody throws a ball, a big dance, and everybody meets and drinks punch and people play cards and they end backgammon and they have teta tets where people are alone briefly in one corner

of the room. And then there's witty repartee and lots of formal meetings and dances. And this is the, this is the single scene of the 18th century and it's highly ornate and civilized and very heavily supervised. But that's how people operate it because they lived in real communities. We don't. You know, I have never in my life been in a neighborhood event in any of the houses that I've ever lived in, including my own birth home in Western North Dakota. I have never been part of a neighborhood festival, dance, feast, ball, barbecue, not once. Well, maybe you should be responsible for the first one ever, not in this neighborhood. Not, but you see the problem that we have reached this point where we have become atomized and people are therefore alone and lonely and they still have the same social urges that humans have already always had, but they don't have the social opportunities any longer. And surprisingly, I mean, one of the, actually, one of the best dating zones in America

now is the church and people who don't want the want ad world of osato masochism and black knit stockings go to churches because they assume that there's a self selection of people who are reasonably normal, who would then go to singles nights or social events at churches. I see people coming to the church where I am, you know, I can tell when they're coming and they're looking around to see if there are other young people their age and when they don't see them, they're gone, they're back to the want ads. But I think it's a crisis of our time. You know, now you hear about people who meet on the internet. There's this really, I think, loads some trend and commercial television towards extreme dating issues. Or the Judith Rossner novel looking for Mr. Goodbar about to, it's a non-fiction story about a young teacher who gets involved in the bar scene and meets a man who eventually kills her. I mean, this sort of thing is not all that uncommon. The bar scene is a rough, rough place.

Jefferson, you know, what struck me is so interesting about what we were talking about today is Jefferson's actual description of the ideal woman. I mean, he clearly could not have married Abigail Adams because he wanted a woman much quieter and more docile and more deferential and softer than Abigail Adams ever was. And yet your man, the character you're developing, John Adams thrived on this sprightly, outspoken, witty woman. He had a low self-esteem. He couldn't hurt him very much. No, seriously. I think that's obviously, it is a cheap shot, but I think it's an unfair one because I, well, I love about John Adams that I don't love about Thomas Jefferson as Adams taste in women. Adams was the kind of man who has a sufficient sense of himself that he can share life with somebody of a strong will and passion, whereas Jefferson had to make sure everybody around him was subordinate from Madison on down, which I think helps to explain the Sally Heming story. Jefferson needed people to subordinate themselves to his wisdom and will.

Adams was able to marry an extremely clever, talented and strong woman and thrive on it. I think that's a sign of his greatness. Sounds like an aries to me there, Mr. Jefferson. Don't you agree that that's a... I have deeper respect for John Adams because of his mating than I do for Jefferson because of his mating. No, there is something really extraordinary. And extraordinary for the time that Mrs. Adams could be as strong as she was. I mean, that she felt the empowered to be as strong as she was, because even in New England, I think the woman that strong was looking down upon, but they even wrote each other. What I would call sex letters. Now of course you have to comb them with the tiniest comb in the world and a lot of imagination to see that. There were several exchanges when they were apart and one where he says, if I were home now, I could show you that I'm like a 40-year-old, which I think is terrific. And there are several where she expresses sexual desire for her husband and letters. And this is pretty amazing given the social code of the time, their Calvinism and the fact

that letters are routinely opened in the males of the 18th century. May explain, you know, the importance of a relationship that is grounded in the mind because I think that is the level at which they primarily shared. And maybe a relationship that is based in mental activity between peers really makes it possible to express all sorts of things that one can't, if one is as Jefferson was always concerned with propriety and with, as you said, remaining the top person. It's an interesting thing about getting this far into a character. I've been at this for, you know, more than a decade now, and I've really learned a lot about Jefferson, and I often speak intuitively as Jefferson, and when I was talking about how Jefferson regarded sexuality, I'm pretty certain that I have it right, that Jefferson regarded sexuality almost the way women, when I was growing up, regarded their menstrual cycles as a visitation from outside of a disagreeable thing.

With shame, and that he prided himself on not, certainly not wanting to talk about it, but probably not wanting to think about it either, that for him it was a sign of some lingering animalism and human civilization that he wouldn't turn away from, he clearly he was a highly sexed man, but that he wasn't going to dwell on, and what strikes me is so odd about our time is that if you take the ads in a weekly newspaper like this, people don't seem to be characterizing themselves holistically, they seem to be characterizing themselves according to the dark side, and I think, well, let's get the libido, not necessarily dark, but certainly the subterranean, and I think we've reached an interesting point in a civilization when the subterranean becomes the text. What do you think Mr. Jefferson would say to us? I think he would say, in its kind of a simplistic answer, but I think he would say you have become the Roman Empire, Caligula is just around the corner, and I think Mr. Jefferson said this on our last program. I think Caligula, you know, the idea of Nero and Caligula and all of those Roman emperors

that were written about by Tacitus and later by given who were sexual perverts and who were, they were like Saddam Hussein and Ude and Qisei, essentially, they were, they were loathsome human beings who had reached high power, and Jefferson believed that at a certain point, cultures reached that stage, and if he read, if he got on the internet and spent one day on it, or if he read weekly newspapers and their want ads, I think he would say this culture is done. If Jefferson and people like him are right, then we're reaching a period where, of no return for America, if Jefferson may be wrong, I mean, maybe we've reached a period of desperation and social alienation and that we will self-correct, that we will say at a certain point, you know, that's not life, that's interesting, but it's not life, and we now need to re-establish community and de-centralize our system and rebuild neighborhoods and create face-to-face communications and de-animalize our culture somewhat.

I think Jefferson would say that the mind has been neglected in modern American life, and yet this is a time in history when people are better educated than they have ever been in human history, more people. You know, Hamilton wrote a want ad, he wrote a letter, and our friend Hal Bidlach, the wonderful Hal Bidlach of Colorado Springs who portrays Alexander Hamilton, sometimes quotes this, but Hamilton was asked by one of his friends what kind of a woman he was looking for as a wife, and he said, rich, pretty, the little frivolous, brain's not too important, but he actually wrote a description of the kind of woman that he wanted, and so that strikes me as interesting. Jefferson wrote his, that famous line about softness of disposition, Alexander Hamilton wrote a long letter outlining just the kind of woman he wanted, and he wanted to marry into wealth, period. You know, she had to be pretty too, but wealth was the key issue for him and social standing. I wonder what John Adams, if Adams ever wrote a kind of picture of the ideal woman,

and what she looked like. Well, if any of our listeners know of such a letter, I hope they will bring it to our attention. I certainly would like to discover it, and in the meantime, I'll dig and dig and dig, and who knows, maybe I will find something along that line. Adams, I think, is going to be, you know, if you think Jefferson resisted writing this want ad, just try Adams, because Adams, in his diaries, you know, really was embarrassed by the period in his life that I would characterize as particularly sexual, until he was uncomfortable with the feelings that he had toward women. I think that's the Puritan, and it's nice that he found a woman with whom he really was able to, apparently, be a bit liberated, and she too. Well, I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting that in a way, and I'm sure this is true of women, we know we've been talking exclusively about men, but it would be fun to turn the tables. What was Abigail Adams ideal man? I'm just guessing it wasn't John, that John had qualities that she thought were outstanding, but that if she had had a free

choice in the world and had been able to make a pigmalion-like mate, she would not have chosen somebody as narcissistically troubled as John Adams was. She resisted him for quite a while. It was not something that happened overnight. I wonder if anyone today, I don't know about in his time, but I wonder if anyone today would want Jefferson. I meet lots of people who say, oh, I love Thomas Jefferson. I love the man who built Monticello. I love what Jefferson represents, but when you think of what a control freak he was, and how incredibly busy, I mean, workaholic doesn't do it for Jefferson. Jefferson is a man who probably is very hard to get the attention of, and very self-absorbed in the narcissistic way, but self-absorbed in the way of doing projects. He's busy all the time, and he doesn't really need to share. He's a self-starting engine. I wonder if anyone or any woman of our time would really want a man of that type.

But when he wanted sex, he probably wanted it right away. Well, maybe, but see, when did people have sex between babies? I don't even know what sex looked like in the 18th century, and where Sally Hemings in all of this, and does she have a will, or is she automatic when Jefferson wants sex, she's there, or does she get to choose too? We don't know. These are secret issues in all areas, including our own, and it's very hard to reconstruct what it must have been in Jefferson's time. Well, let me ask you, Clay, do you think it should remain secret? Yes. I believe that we have become overwhelmingly self-indulgent in our willingness to tell others, including a broad public about our sexual preferences, our orientations, our sexual interests, our sexual history, that we have allowed the sexual lens to take over our scrutiny of celebrity lives, athletes' lives, politicians' lives. It's just nonsense.

Forty years ago, we had a president who had extracurricular relationships. The media knew it and kept quiet about it. Now, there's even hint that something is going on. The media leaps on it, and it becomes front-page news for as long as it. But it turns out that that's the wonderful thing about comparative culture. I was tempted to say, well, that's the world we live in, but it's not true. The French don't behave that way, and the Germans don't behave that way. They're British or sort of that way. Most European countries have a much greater sense of privacy and decorum than we do, and they realize that human sexuality is not one of the best ways to judge the character and achievement and capacity of a public figure. Do you think we'll get there? No. I think we're stuck. We're Calvin's nation. Even Calvin would be horrified by Calvin's nation. Clay, thank you very much for another interesting program. Hopefully we'll break new ground again next week.

I'm going to go right my add. Bye. Our highlight today on John Adams comes from Passion at Sage, the character and legacy of John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis. Professor Ellis darts chapter 16, Intimacies for the following quote. This comes from a letter that Adams wrote to Francis Van Verken, on April 8, 1815. This is Adam's writing, I have as great a terror of learned ladies as you have. I have such a consciousness of inferiority to them as mortifies and humiliates myself love to such a degree that I can scarcely speak in their presence. Very few of these ladies have ever had the condescension to allow me to talk. And when it has so happened, I have always come off mortified at the discovery of my inferiority. That closes our spotlight on John Adams. Thank you for listening and have a good day. Music for the new Thomas Jefferson Hour was provided by Steven Swinpert of Reno, Nevada. You may visit Mr. Jefferson's home page on the worldwide web at www.thhyphenjefferson.org. To ask Mr. Jefferson a question or to donate

$9 and receive a copy of today's program on CD on the set, please call 1-888-458-1803-1888458-1803. Thank you for listening and we hope you join us again next week for another entertaining historically accurate and thought-provoking commentary through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson.