suicide as socially acceptable
Oct. 19th, 2006 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burntcopperokay, this is a bit of a follow-on from the previous post, but I also have the Rome screensaver at work, so historical context kind of jumped into my head.
I'm wondering when it was that suicide, at least in the UK, became socially unacceptable, the 'coward's way out'. Because from what I've read in the way of celtic legends, roman, greek and egyptian society, suicide used to be seen as the honorable way out, especially in the upper echelons of society. I don't know about saxon/anglo/jute, because pretty much you get exposed to of the Dark Ages history starts at about a century pre-Norman Conquest, and you don't get taught much more than battles/ransom requests/political motivations/taxation. Is it an entirely judeo-christian construct, or a societal construct of post-renaissance/georgian/victorian society?
Any info would be good.
ETA on checking wikipedia, it appears in the fifth century St. Augustine disapproved whole-heartedly of suicide as an extrapolation of 'thou shalt not kill', people took this to extremes, and by 533 you couldn't get a christian burial. Still wondering about saxon/anglo/jute attitudes, since as we all know, they were nasty pagans for a good while. Plus there's vikings. Hmm. I know they practiced ritual self-sacrifice in the Odin cults...
I'm wondering when it was that suicide, at least in the UK, became socially unacceptable, the 'coward's way out'. Because from what I've read in the way of celtic legends, roman, greek and egyptian society, suicide used to be seen as the honorable way out, especially in the upper echelons of society. I don't know about saxon/anglo/jute, because pretty much you get exposed to of the Dark Ages history starts at about a century pre-Norman Conquest, and you don't get taught much more than battles/ransom requests/political motivations/taxation. Is it an entirely judeo-christian construct, or a societal construct of post-renaissance/georgian/victorian society?
Any info would be good.
ETA on checking wikipedia, it appears in the fifth century St. Augustine disapproved whole-heartedly of suicide as an extrapolation of 'thou shalt not kill', people took this to extremes, and by 533 you couldn't get a christian burial. Still wondering about saxon/anglo/jute attitudes, since as we all know, they were nasty pagans for a good while. Plus there's vikings. Hmm. I know they practiced ritual self-sacrifice in the Odin cults...
