Dear John: As you probably know, this ancient history is not my real bag since I
am focused on the spiritual history and roots of early A.A. as well as the
temperance and other views from about 1850 on because they are related. So I
follow all these letters as an interested spectator.

But I have to say that your second century item from Hermas is a dilly. Somehow
I'll have to work that into one of my own books, even if it's in an afterword or
"afterglow." Congratulations.

Cordially, Dick B. http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml
"John A. Coroy II" wrote:

> I don't know if going back to the second century will help but I will
> indulge myself.
>
> In the second century a freelance Christian prophetic and preacher named
> Hermas produced a work named "The Instructor" . In it he wrote that
> adolescent boys and girls should be kept from "the hottest of all
> liquids---wine" least it kindle "wild impulses and burning lusts and fiery
> habits...inflamed from within...beasts and organs of generation, inflamed
> with wine, expand and swell in a shameful way...inciting the man of correct
> behavior to transgression; and hence the voluptuousness of youth overpass
> the bounds of modesty."
>
> Plato said that; "Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their
> eighteenth year."
>
> So it is that the desire to protect adolescents from the dangers of alcohol
> abuse is not a modern phenomena...
>
> John
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ann Tlusty" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 9:25 AM
> Subject: Re: youth and alcoholic beverages
>
> As an expansion of Rod's comments on alcohol and youth before the 19th
> century, here are some observations from the 16th-17th centuries...  It's
> certainly true that throughout this period, most official advice was based
> on physical beliefs about the heat in alcohol and the youthful body (those
> over 40, as long as they were men, were advised to be quite liberal in
> their drinking habits...!).  But there were social considerations in
> pre-modern European society regarding age as well as gender - while
> virtually everyone, including small children, was given some alcohol to
> drink (a little wine mixed with water functioned as Kool-Aid for early
> modern Germans), the right to drink socially and publically, or generally
> engage in drinking bouts, was a right of adult men only.  I don't doubt
> that young boys did it from time to time, and there are occasional reports
> of a group of "boys" drinking (a term which in modern German could be
> either Knappe or Knabe), but without specific ages - this implies that they
> were apprentices, which normally would be quite young, but in some cases,
> weavers for example, they could easily be over 20.  But where age is
> mentioned, I can honestly say that in all of the hundreds of cases I've
> read of people being drunk or being involved in tavern drinking bouts in
> early modern Germany, I've never seen anyone report their age as less than
> 16.  Granted, they weren't always very precise about their age ("says he's
> about 16 or 17"). But there does seem to have been some sort of generally
> accepted social restraint at work.  So where "age" as a specific
> chronological boundary may not have been important, there were definite
> boundaries between age-related identities (apprentice vs. journeymen, boy
> vs. man).  Whether this can be defined as a moral issue, or whether is was
> related to physical notions, or whether it is simply a status issue (boys
> didn't have enough money to buy their own drinks), I'm not sure.  This is
> also just an impression and not something I've been able to do targeted
> research on - but I'll keep looking!
> cheers
> Ann Tlusty
>
> At 04:04 PM 4/30/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >You raise a lot of central questions here, David, and I hope you've set
> >off a very interesting thread.
> >
> >One of the key questions is the way cultures construct ages and
> >generations.  It's a commonplace, I suppose, that the chronological age of
> >most individuals was not terribly important until quite recently.  Until
> >minimum ages for drinking, driving, voting, retirement, and so on were
> >regulated, who cared how old anyone was?  True, there might be significant
> >ages related minority and majority and the legal capacity to marry
>
> >without parental consent or to inherit property. But they probably
> >affected relatively few people in western societies until the
> >eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
> >
> >One survey I did years ago of people in late eighteenth-century France
> >compared the ages they gave and their ages as determined by birth
> >records.  Only 68% got their age right. A higher degree of accuracy in
> >knowing ages is surely a necessary underpinning for any age-based
> >restriction on drinking.
> >
> >Of course, for millennia there has been advice on the relationship of age
> >and alcohol. (I give some in my history of wine.) Much of it was based on
> >characterizations of the youthful body as hot and thereful vulnerable to
> >combustion if "hot" beverages like alcohol were consumed).
> >
> >What's notable about the 19th and 20th centuries, when age restrictions
> >began to appear consistently in all jurisdictions, is that it was based
> >more clearly on moral rather than physical arguments: that children were
> >innocent, vulnerable, and that alcohol was inappropriate for them. Of
> >course, this also coincided with the rise of temperance arguments and
> >of the wider availability of alternative beverages.
> >
> >Shifts in concepts of childhood and youth are clearly central to the
> >history of alcohol regulation, but it's difficult to separate them (even
> >for analytical purposes) from other social, econimic and cultural changes.
> >
> >I'll follow this thread with interest. I'm currently completing a history
> >of alcohol (for the University of North Carolina Press) and I'm sure to
> >learn something that will help me on this.
> >
> >Rod Phillips
> >
> >
> >David Fahey writes:
> >>
> >> The more I study alcohol history the more that I begin to realize the
> >> extent of my ignorance.  Perhaps ATHG subscribers can help me in regards
> >> youth and alcoholic beverages.  I assume that a large part of the problem
> >> is how a society defines childhood.  For instance, in recent years in the
> >> USA, childhood has been both enlarged chronologically (university
> students
> >> are not expected to be as responsible for their actions as had people of
> >> the same age a hundred years previously) and also narrowed (adult rights
> in
> >> voting and sexuality for teenagers).  I assume too that the varying role
> of
> >> formal law in different societies is relevant, as is the kind of
> alcoholic
> >> beverages (for instance, wine or whiskey, low-alcohol beer or regular
> beer,
> >> etc.).  And, of course, minimum legal ages for drinking seldom coincide
> >> with practice.  There are all sorts of other considerations, as for
> >> example, religion (notably, Islam) and the role alcohol plays in social
>
> >> rituals, etc.  Any suggestions?
> >>
> >> David M. Fahey Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA <[log in to unmask]>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >Roderick Phillips
> >Editor, Journal of Family History/
> >Professor, Department of History
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >Carleton University
> >1125 Colonel By Drive
> >Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
> >Tel: (613) 520-2600 ext 2824; fax: (613) 520-2819
> >Email address: [log in to unmask]
> >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >

--
God bless,

Dick B.
P.O. Box 837
Kihei, HI 96753-0837
(808) 874-4876 (tel/fax)
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://www.dickb.com/index.shtml