Talk:Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln

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Her father was the 3rd Earl. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:13, 7 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the editorializing in this article is based on a misunderstanding of medieval 'rape', which does not mean the same thing as the modern term. There is a significant scholarly record on the range of occurrences it could be used to cover in medieval England. The term meant "to seize and take away by force," but force is in the eye of the beholder, and more to the point, the eye of the complainant who often wasn't the 'victim'. It could refer to any number of violations of the social order involving a woman and a man to whom they were not married at the time of the offense. In addition to the mundane extramarital affair, when another man helped a woman escape her abusive husband or when her husband was squandering her inheritance, that could be called 'rape'. No actual sexual congress need have occured. When two teenagers ran away together, that could be called 'rape'; when a widow took up with her boy-toy and her family feared the loss of lands to him, that could be called 'rape', and when (as happened in this case) a widow was 'abducted' by her lover to marry without the required royal permission, that could be called 'rape'. Note that the force involved is not necessarily directed against the woman, but may be directed against her 'legitimate' caretaker (as defined by medieval law), or even against the social order, and that in all these cases the complainant was not the woman involved, but the person who viewed themselves disadvantaged by the fully voluntary events. Likewise, 'rape' could be claimed when a woman was abducted and held against her will to gain access to her lands or moneys, or as part of a family squabble, or to force her to consent to some agreement against her will, with no sexual intercourse taking place. And, of course, when a woman was raped (modern sense), that was also rape (medieval sense). This makes it very difficult to attribute motivations unless there is explicit testimony of the woman herself, and this rarely survives. Unfortunately, the blog post (not a WP:RS) that serves as one of the major sources here seems unaware of this body of work, and is looking at it through the lens of the modern definition, and while it may be reasonably trustworthy in laying out the chronology, the same cannot be said for the interpretation it attributes to these events, let alone editorializing further and removing the part of a quote from a scholar that provides a more nuanced view. As an example, to say, as this article did, "that she was forced into marriage is strongly suggested by the haste in which the unlicensed marriage occurred" misses a much more mundane explanation - people who elope marry quickly thereafter, by choice. Agricolae (talk) 16:35, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]