An Interview With The Author

Someone gave me a list of questions about my book, which I have tried to answer to the best of my abilities:)

Who are you and what are you doing in your daily life?

My name is Sanne Wijker, I live in Holland and I am your average middle class housewife.

How and why did you decide to write a book?

This is a complicated question! As far as I remember myself, I have been an avid reader, and I was especially fond of  adventure/mystery stories about medieval knights, damsels in distress and English lords:) As I grew older I switched to fantasy and science fiction and became a fan of Star Wars, Tolkien and Narnia (which I read already at the university). Unfortunately, as the years went by, the society became more feminist and traditional adventure tales became stories of grrrl power which I detest, so I decided the only thing to do was to try and write a book in the classical adventure style and that's how I became an author. 

What is your book about and what are you trying to say in it?

In a nutshell, my book is a story about a young man from an aristocratic family who by the chain of unlucky circumstances  becomes a soldier of fortune, and later a secret agent of his government, his relationship with his best friend, and, of course, there is a love affair in it. As for what I have been trying to say...well, one could say that it's a story about friendship, but it's also about honour and forgiveness and other things, too. 

How would you describe the audience you were writing for? Men or women, young readers or adults?

There are certainly more men who read books in this genre (fantasy/science fiction), but I don't see why a woman can't read it, either.  Some of my friends of both sexes read  and enjoyed it, though the women will probably find Parts 2 and 3 more interesting, as that's where the love story begins.  As for the age of the readers, the book deals with some subjects which in my opinion are more suited for adult audience, such as adultery and the consequences of it etc.It's not a book for children, as for teenagers, parental guidance is recommended. On the other hand, when you look at what books the teenagers are supposed to read at school, you'll find this one quite innocent in comparison.

Who do you consider to be the most attractive character in the book and why?

Well, the main character, of course!:) As for why, well, you need to read the book to understand. As for the female characters, Miss Nerts because she is a wise old lady. 

Why did you choose fantasy and not another genre?

Strictly speaking, my book is neither fantasy nor science fiction, I'm told the correct name of the genre is space opera. The events take place in the future in a part of the Galaxy far far away but the  society has something of the Victorian customs and traditions. That's probably why I chose this genre, it gave me an opportunity to create a world which still operates according to the Victorian concepts of honour and duty, which have become quite outdated nowadays, but has modern technology.

Does you book contain a Christian message and which exactly?

Being  a Christian myself, of course, when writing this book I was doing it from a Christian point of view. On the other hand, I didn't want to sound preachy, as honestly, I wanted to try and reach people who are not particularly religious but like this genre, and I hope should they read the book it will make them think. It's basically a story of a man who lost his faith due to the tragedy of his youth but finds God in the end and learns how to forgive.

Why do you think this message is important?

Because man needs God

Was it difficult to write the book?

Writing it was not difficult, editing and preparing it for print was.   

Do you want to present the world you created as an ideal one? Was that part of your message?

In my book I describe several different planets, each with its own customs and traditions. I wouldn't describe that world as an ideal (well, aside from Delta with its Victorian tea parties:), it has cruelty and ugliness in it, but there is also place for courage and heroism and adventures and true love. 

Do you have plans to write  a sequel, or may be something else?

I'm not so sure about the sequel as I basically said everything in my first book what I wanted to say about this particular character. I would definitely like to write more books about the same world and probably will do it one day.

Where can one buy your book?

It is currently sold on Lulu and you can see a permanent link on my blog. The advantage of Lulu is that it sells to nearly every country on the planet. It normally takes about a week to get it. It's also  on Amazon since recently. Here is the link: 

The Long Way Home 

I'm planning to make it available in Kindle format soon 

Well, that was about all. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

C. Lewis And Liberals

C. Lewis was apparently not a big fan of liberals. In one of his Narnia books, The Silver Chair, he mocks modern "progressive" education, describing a co-ed school where children instead of being punished for wrongdoings, are sent into counselling. In the end of the book, Aslan sets things right by having Eustace give a sound thrashing  to boys while Jill does the same to girls. The Head, who is a woman, escapes all the consequences though, and in the end is sent to Parliament because she is not capable of any productive activity.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, which I finished re-reading yesterday, is even funnier as it shows what happens when a liberal comes in contact with a traditional world. In Chapter 1, C. Lewis describes the parents of the unfortunate Eustace, who sound exactly like the present day progressives, even though the book was written in the 1950s. Their son calls them by the first name instead of "Father" and "Mother", and we are informed that they are vegetarians and teetotallers, and they never read fairy tales to their only child.

When Eustace first comes to Narnia (or, rather, on board a Narnian ship), he whines all the time and wants to write an official complaint to the British Consul. He is also a feminist, which he learned from his mother, a coward and all around a nuisance. (Lewis apparently didn't believe in democracy so he made Eustace a Republican as well:).

One of the funniest moments is when slavetraders who captured him together with his cousins and King Caspian are trying to sell him at the slave market but nobody wants to buy him. Of course, later Eustace changes for the better, as we all know, but not after some very unpleasant things happen to him.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader was written as the third book of Narnia series, but I find it deeper than other books and it gives more food for thought, so to say. Take, for instance, the story of the Dufflepuds. It violates all the modern principles of general equality and personal liberty. Dufflepuds are shown as unequal. They are not intelligent enough to be left to their own devices. They need a firm hand, and less liberty than more advanced creatures, as they are not only stupid but also lazy, and won't work even to feed themselves unless forced by their master, the magician.

It's quite offensive to moden sensibilities, and the story doesn't end there, as the magician arbitrarily turns them into monopods, for punishment, but also for his own entertainment; and Lucy, who is, so to say, the most positive character in the whole series, fully agrees with him and begs him not to change them back. I will admit, I still have trouble understanding the author's meaning in this episode.

Another positive character is Reepicheep, the heroical Mouse. He is an ideal Knight and in the end gets rewarded by getting straight into Aslan's country, presumably without dying first, as an Old Testament prophet. Yet, he is devoid of any humanism. He is the one who first gets into open confrontation with Eustace before the latter's conversion, as Eustace, despite his proclaimed pacifism, is perfectly capable of passive-aggressive attitudes.

In the episode with the pirate ship in the beginning of the book, the Mouse states they: "...ought to have...boarded her and hanged every mother's son of them." (p. 22, Fontana Lions, 1980). Of course, this is a very unpopular point of view nowadays, especially among (some) modern Christian, who apparently believe that the more disgusting acts a person commits, the more he is in need of our love and sympathy, and not of correction. May be they should read more old books like Narnia, instead of consuming modern entertainment.

Degeneration

Some call it progress

Comfort Foods For Dark Days

This is a Scandinavian (Swedish) dessert, which according to my book is called aeppelkaka med vaniljsaus (spelling?) which means apple pie with vanilla sauce. 

It's very easy to make and tastes really great, plus you won't need to buy any expensive ingredients.

For the cake, you will need:

5 apples, medium to large size
4tbsp sugar
lemon peel, rasped
3/4c flour
7tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar extra

 Knead flour, 2 tbsp sugar and butter into soft dough and put into the refrigerator for about 25-30 minutes. In the meanwhile, peel the apples and cut into thin slices, place into a greased baking pan, layering with 4 tbsp sugar and lemon peel. Roll the dough out, cover the apples and bake the pie for about 25 min in a warm oven (+200*C).

While the pie is baking, make the sauce. You will need:
1 egg
2tbsp sugar
2 tsp  corn starch
1 3/4c milk
1tbsp vanilla sugar

In a small cooking pan, whisk together the egg, sugar, corn starch and milk, and cook on low till nearly boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from fire and add vanilla sugar. Keep in the fridge and serve together with the pie. Enjoy!

 P.S. Don't forget that today is the first Sunday of Advent!

How To Organise Your Homemaking

I have recently noticed that though my blog is called Adventures In Keeping House, there are actually not that many posts about housekeeping, so I decided it was time for one!

Have you ever been overwhelmed with your housekeeping? I have. It all started with me deciding to write a book, which took a lot of my free time, but was nothing compared to typing it, editing and preparing for print. If someone tells you that housekeeping is easy to combine with writing books, working from home or running a business, don't listen to them! Something will inevitably suffer and in my case it was my housekeeping and my sanity.

Seeing me overwhelmed with responsibilities and not wishing me to lose my mind, my husband suggested hiring domestic help, which we did; unfortunately, just as I got accustomed to the changes in my cleaning schedule, she got married and quitted. It was right before summer vacation, and then I had to deal with serious sickness in the family,  and other unpleasant things.

 Anyway, this all being in the past, I finally decided it was time to put my life back on track, starting with getting the house in order. Actually, I'm always planning to get my house in order, but something always interferes with the best of my intentions. Well, this time I decided to really make an effort and turned to YouTube for solutions, hoping that a homemaking video or two can give me the sorely lacking inspiration, and I was right!

YouTube has lots of homemaking videos, which will teach you all sorts of things, from setting the table to cleaning your bathroom properly, to blessing your husband to homeschooling your children, you just name it. I spent the best part of Thursday watching them and found one which I especially liked and would recommend to anyone struggling with organising her home. I hope you'll find it as helpful as I did!

Charity For Homemakers?

Some time ago I read an article about the position of women in Iran. Now I must tell you beforehand that my ideas about life in Iran were based on newspaper horror stories and a book called "Not Without My Daughter" which some of you have probably read. The article in question dispells myths about patriarchal oppression of women in the modern day Iran (warning: language) and presents quite a different picture.

To sum it up, while there are laws in Iran which seem unduly harsh and repressive to a Westerner (like public hanging or prohibition of alcohol), they equally apply to both men and women, and men often have it harder. Women, on the other hand, get all sorts of welfare payments from the government which enable them to stay home if they choose to, even in the case of widowhood and divorce. I was especially impressed by the fact that there is an organisation which will pay salary to a single lower class woman who has no male provider (neither father or husband) and no governmental job, so that she can presumably stay home.

Iran looks like a country where they have socialism for women and capitalism for men. I won't reflect on whether such system is good or bad, or whether certain restrictions of freedom are worth being able to avoid joining the workforce. There is something else I'd like to point out: in Western countries churches run all sorts of charities and collect money mostly for the benefit of the Thirld World, but I have never heard of a charity which would support homemakers, like enabling widows to stay home, for instance.

I'm not saying they don't exist, it's simply that I never heard of one, meanwhile I'm sure there was a verse in the Bible about pure and undefiled religion being visiting widows and orphans in their affliction. Western churches want to do a lot of things for orphans, but usually in some other country, not their own.

To illustrate my point further, my husband once knew  a Turkish guy who was self-employed and had a wife and a couple of children to support. He didn't always earn that much and his parents regularly helped him financially so that his wife could stay home. It was simply a normal thing to do. Now how many Western parents would do the same for their daughter-in-law? They'd rather complain that while she is enjoying herself at home, their precious son has to break his back at work.

You see, in our society the default position for a woman whether married or not, and whether she has children, is to have a job. People complain that the government is constantly trying to cut benefits for housewives, but what about the Church? Surely, Christians should know better? To get back to the money question, there are lots of things churches could do for homemakers, besides giving them direct financial help. They could, for instance, start a special free newspaper, supporting housewives, or may be, a ministry for new mothers who choose to stay home and are overwhelmed with responsibilities, because they were never taught homemaking skills.

In the meantime, while the churches are busy with other things, it becomes our responsibility. If you are wealthy, and if you donate to various organised charities, may be you could consider donating to a struggling one income family for a change? If your son's or daughter's family is struggling to pay rent so that the wife and mother has to work and you have a big house, may be you could invite them to stay with you for a while? If you have some free time and know a homemaker who is lonely, may be you could visit her? If a young mother is struggling with her housekeeping, could you give her advice and help?

What have you recently done to support a homemaker?

Proud To Be A Housewife

In Defense Of Coverture

Below is a guest post by Jesse Powell. Since coverture has recently been a subject of discussion on this blog, I thought it a good idea to publish it.

In Defense of Coverture – Guest Post by Jesse Powell

Coverture was the legal system of marriage in England from 1188 to 1870; from the Tractatus of Glanvill to the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870.  The Tractatus of Glanvill was the first effort to systemize and make more formal English Common Law, it was the beginning of the common law system in England.  The Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 was the beginning of the modern day feminist revolution; so basically the era of coverture goes from the beginning of common law to the beginning of modern feminism in England.  Early America as an English colony originally also adopted coverture regarding the laws of marriage up until American Married Women’s Property Acts started to be enacted state by state from 1839 to 1865.  The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is what set the stage for the later emergence of common law in England and coverture as part of common law.

It should be pointed out however that coverture which was part of common law or secular law was not the only legal authority affecting the lives of married women; equity courts, ecclesiastical law (from the church), and customary law were alternative sources of legal authority that women could appeal to.  These alternative jurisdictions were not bound by the coverture principle that wives were “covered” by their husbands; wives often acted on their own as plaintiffs and defendants in the proceedings of these alternative jurisdictions, these alternative jurisdictions giving women including married women certain individual rights and opportunities for redress and litigation outside of the system of coverture.

The idea behind coverture was that the wife and the husband were one legal entity; in practice this meant that the husband was always the one either suing or being sued and that the husband was the only one who could enter into contracts, that the wife could only enter into a contract including employment contracts with her husband’s consent, and that the husband was legally in control of all marital property and income including property brought into the marriage by the wife and including income earned by the wife.

An interesting aspect of coverture that is often overlooked is that the wife could act on behalf of her husband unilaterally with the husband’s presumed consent to purchase household goods or “necessaries” according to the husband’s economic status.  This meant that the wife unilaterally acting on her own initiative was automatically assumed under the law to be acting as an agent of her husband when purchasing ordinary household goods.  In other words the husband was automatically legally liable to pay for any debts his wife incurred “acting on his behalf” in the purchase of “necessaries” such as clothing, food, lodgings, and medicines for domestic use.  A husband could take steps to try to control his wife’s spending by contacting specific traders and retailers telling them to no longer accept credit from his wife or by general announcements such as paying the town crier to announce to everyone that retailers should no longer accept credit from his wife or taking out advertisements in the newspaper telling retailers to no longer accept credit from his wife.

As the paper “Favored or oppressed? Married women, property, and ‘coverture’ in England, 1660-1800”
states:

“A married woman could not contract debts in her own name. Instead, the common-law device of the law of agency provided her with the right to purchase necessaries in her husband’s name, according to his rank and wealth. A husband’s consent to his wife’s pledging his credit was assumed from the couple’s cohabitation. As The laws respecting women stated in 1772, ‘the husband shall answer all contracts of hers for necessaries, for his assent shall be presumed to all necessary contracts, upon the account of cohabiting ’.  This implied authority meant that retailers and traders could deal confidently with a wife without checking whether she had her husband’s permission to act as his agent.  A wife therefore had the right to make purchases using her husband’s credit while they cohabited, even if she was known to be adulterous. The right still applied if her husband turned her out or if she was forced to leave her husband to escape his violence. Wives were not entitled to use it, however, if they ran away from their husbands for any reason, or if the couple entered into a mutually agreed separation and the husband paid a fixed maintenance.”

This power of unilateral spending by the wife could sometimes have serious negative consequences for the husband.  As related in the “Favored or oppressed?” paper about coverture:

“Furthermore, 10 per cent of the secondary complaints in the records of marital difficulties were made by husbands accusing their wives of extravagance and financial mismanagement.  In response to his wife’s suit for restitution of conjugal rights in 1708, Thomas Wood, a sea-faring man of Whitburn, explained that he had separated from her because she had lived extravagantly, contracting debts during his time at sea that reduced him to poverty.

The complaint of financial mismanagement sometimes referred to business as well as household concerns, when men claimed that their business had been damaged by their wives’ actions. In 1723 one farmer declared that his stock was not worth £100, as his wife estimated, but no more than £40 because of her mismanagement.  Similarly social criticism and advice to tradesmen commonly blamed wives for their husbands’ bankruptcy. Daniel Defoe, in The complete English tradesman noted, ‘ I know ’tis a common cry that is rais’d against the woman, when her husband miscarries, namely, that ’tis the wife has ruin’d him’, though he went on to observe that this was not generally true.  This was not just a literary device. A number of husbands accused their wives of bankrupting them.  In 1730 Henry Hendry, a wherryman, responded to his wife’s accusation of physical abuse with a petition that her ill-management and contracting of debts had impoverished him so that he was carried to Newcastle gaol.”

The “Favored or oppressed?” paper goes on to detail some of the ways women were privileged or protected under coverture:

“The so-called favouritisms that wives enjoyed also stemmed from their lack of legal identity. The privileges and rights described by the legal guides can be grouped into three general categories.  Firstly, coverture imposed obligations upon husbands. A wife was entitled to be maintained and to make purchases of necessaries as her husband’s agent.  Secondly, wives were afforded some protection against the unbridled power of their husbands.  They could obtain ‘surety for the peace’ – a bond which obliged a husband to keep the peace towards his wife – against violent husbands, could retain property in marriage through ‘separate estate ’ – a means by which property could be protected for the sole use of the wife during matrimony – and could protect certain rights through equity courts.  Finally, married women enjoyed the evasion or mitigation of punishment in certain types of offences. For example, a wife could not be punished for committing theft in the company of her husband, because the law supposed that she acted under his coercion.  Wives’ inability to make financial transactions in their own name also prevented them from being sued and therefore imprisoned for debt.”

The important thing about coverture that needs to be remembered is that coverture was a system of male guardianship of women, specifically of husbands towards their wives.  Male guardianship of women is a very important principle of traditional culture; to be a guardian means not only to control but also to “guard” and serve the interests of the other.  In particular it needs to be kept in mind that the guardian has to control the person they are guarding and serving in order to guard and serve the person they are the guardian of.  Male control is necessary for the man to be able to serve the interests of the woman he has been assigned to “watch over” and support; in particular male control is necessary for the man to be able to protect himself from the woman he is responsible for taking care of.  People don’t understand that being responsible for the well being of another is a very vulnerable position to be in as the effort you expend for the well being of the other can easily be misused or turned into a mechanism of abuse against you.  This is why the upholding of male authority has always been a fundamental part of every system of male guardianship of women that has been established in the past.

The end of coverture was the beginning of family breakdown and the beginning of men withdrawing their investment in women.  Coverture was the last stable social system the English speaking world had; ever since the dismantling of coverture the family has done nothing but get worse and worse and worse.  Family breakdown was slow in the decades immediately following the end of coverture with family breakdown accelerating as the time since the end of coverture lengthened; a very sharp acceleration of family breakdown starting after 1960 when the pernicious ideology of “gender equality” first started to gain in popularity.  Also thankfully at least in the United States a backlash against the family breakdown wrought by feminism has slowed down the rate of deterioration in the family significantly since 1995.  Historically speaking though the end of coverture was the beginning of the great self-destruction of family life and gender relations that took place from 1870 to 1995 before a significant backlash against this family destruction took hold starting in 1995 and continuing until today.

In order for family life to be returned to full strength and full functioning like it was before feminism started its work of undoing the social contract between men and women; that social contract being that I the man will take care of you the woman as long as you the woman obey me; coverture or something functionally similar to coverture has to be reinstituted.  Men must be seen as the guardians of women and placed into a guardianship role in relation to women once again.

For more on coverture and the history of the breakdown of marriage in the United States including statistics and graphs to illustrate the massive withdrawal of male investment in women that has taken place since the end of coverture I recommend the following article at my website:

Marriage Is Masculinity and Coverture

I am Jesse Powell.  My website is Secular Patriarchy and my cause is the Traditional Family Activists or TFAs.  On October 30, 2013 I split with the TWRAs (Traditional Women’s Rights Activists) to start my own group, the TFAs.  I felt it was important to have my own group, to be able to play a leadership role as a man.  I still support the cause and purpose of the TWRAs but am no longer organizationally connected to the TWRAs or represent the TWRAs.

Farmer's Salad

This is a Middle Eastern salad or a variant of it, my new cooking book calls it fattoush. It's actually very easy to make and tastes very fresh, due to mint leaves (be careful with using too much of it, I read somewhere that mint is not that good for men).

You will need:

toasted bread, cut into small pieces/cubed
1 cucumber
tomatoes
parsley and mint leaves (I used dried parsley)
garlic to taste
salt and pepper
1 onion
vegetable oil
lemon juice

Mix together bread cubes, cucumber and tomatoes (sliced), and parsley and mint leaves. Make salad dressing from chopped garlic and onion, salt, pepper, vegetable oil and lemon juice (I usually use 2tbsp oil and 1tbsp of lemon juice/vinegar, but you can use any other proportion if you like). Add to the salad ingredients and mix well.

I served it with baked potatoes and hamburgers.