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| Saturday, 26 February 2005 |
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"Had we never lov'd sae blindly..."
Scans of lovers' brains show that they lose their critical faculties when smitten, making them less able to spot flaws or potential problems. The blackout could be the reason lovers are said to behave impulsively and why incompatible couples make whirlwind marriages they later regret. Professor Semir Zeki of University College London has been studying lovers' brain scans and will present a paper on the research later this year. "The scanning shows that love activates specific regions in the reward system of the brain, while reducing activity in the systems involved in making negative judgements," he said. Scientists, however, do believe that the suppression of critical judgment may have a useful purpose as it helps relationships to get started. The consequences of letting passion override rational judgement has been a common theme in literature. In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, for example, Mavolio is persuaded to grin continuously and wear ridiculous cross-garters after he is conned into thinking that it is the wish of his beloved. In Sonnet CXLIX Shakespeare writes - Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not, When I against myself with thee partake? Do I not think on thee, when I forgot Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?... Sonnet CXLVIII encapsulates love's irrationality ... O me! What eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight! Or, if they have, where in my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright?... "O mistress mine!" The title of Princess Consort is very new, but that of a Royal Mistress is very old, and when she becomes Mrs. Windsor in April, Camilla Parker Bowles will bring to an end a tradition that has lasted in European royal history for more than 500 years. There will be no more royal mistresses after Mrs. Parker Bowles: hypocritical modern mores, and the press, will see to that. There are sure to be dangerous liaisons, secret lovers and extramarital scandals because this particular royal line may be the randiest in history, but the position of royal mistress, maitresse-en-titre as it was formally styled in the French court, is no more. In her capacity as royal paramour, Mrs. Parker Bowles was heiress to a tradition that encompassed Madam de Pompadour, Lola Montez, Nell Gwyn, Lillie Langtry and Lady Castlemaine. She is the last of the line. Mrs. Parker Bowles was an excellent royal mistress, following the peculiar demands of that role with aplomb: discreet, cheerful, available, undemanding, and not too beautiful. She knew she was good at it, perhaps even born for it: after all, she introduced herself to the Prince of Wales with the observation that her great-grandmother had been his great-grandfather's mistress. In European courts from the 14th to the end of the 19th century, the royal mistress was a position comparable in power and status to that of the prime minister - officially unacknowledged, but known to all. Three people in a royal marriage was usually a bare minimum. In exchange for influence and favour, the royal mistress was expected to sustain the spirits of the king or heir apparent, encourage him in battle, criticise and plot against his blood relatives, sell her jewellery at times of war, dispense patronage to the arts, sleep with him on demand and also, often, his friends. She acted as a lightening rod for criticism of royalty, a "shield against hatred" as one 18th century court manual put it. Indeed, the failure to acquire a royal mistress could be lethal: Lois XVI's uxorious loyalty to Marie Antoinette may have cost them their heads: lacking a mistress to blame for their grievances, the mob turned on the Queen. Very few rulers end up marrying their mistresses. Nero did, in 64AD. The Church of England was created to allow Henry VIII to marry his mistress. History remembers glamorous royal paramours, but tends to forget the wives. Few could name Louis XV's queen, but two centuries after Madame de Pompdour's death, the quaff favoured by English teddy boys of the 1950s was named in her memory. Now that is fame. - The Times Gay Mates The director of a German zoo has defended her campaign to mate a group of homosexual male penguins with females, arguing that it is the only way to preserve a dying breed from extinction. Heike Kuck said that she had been inundated with criticism by the gay lobby after making public her plan. "We're simply trying to help save a threatened species," she said of the Humboldt penguin, a bird whose homosexual tendencies are well-known to zoologists. Gay groups reacted with outrage when four female penguins were flown in from Sweden to allow keepers to see if they had any influence on the homosexual pairings - Daily Telegraph Male Supremacy Britain's chief driving examiner has risked the wrath of the country's women motorists by declaring that men are better drivers. Robin Cummins, who overseas the driving tests of 1.5m learners each year as the chief instructor for the Driving Standards Agency, claims men display more natural ability. Not only are they better at control and maneuvering, they also need less tuition. He says a man learning to drive needs an average 12.2 hours of lessons and has a pass rate of 46 per cent. Women need an average of 15.3 hours of tuition and their pass rate is 40 per cent. Govt. News Network |
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Produced by Lake House |
People
who feel compelled to behave irrationally on Valentine's Day, for instance, may
not be entirely to blame for their actions. Scientists have found evidence that
love really is blind.
