Pearl challenges the myth that 1950s gender dynamics were uniquely oppressive, tracing modern debates to distorted legal history like Caroline Norton’s 1830s pamphlets and the Infant Custody Act (1873)—often framed as pro-maternal but actually aimed at shielding women from abusive husbands. She cites Powell v. Clever (1789) and Wellesy v. Beuf to argue fathers lost custody due to moral or financial failures, not systemic bias, while critiquing the "tender years doctrine" as sexist. Contradicting claims that men were historically disadvantaged, she questions whether pro-feminist judges ignored paternal rights, though Rachel’s expertise is sought to validate her skepticism of women being "less nurturing." The episode exposes how selective historical narratives fuel contemporary gender conflicts. [Automatically generated summary]
Where I cover this week's not only, you know, guys, I don't like to limit it to the treachery, debauchery, and craziness because I just have so much stuff I'm interested in.
So much stuff I want to say that I think it's almost a disservice to call it the treachery, debauchery, and craziness.
It's Pearl's world.
You guys are just living in it.
Okay, so today, before we start, guys, we are demonetized.
Yes, yes.
And if YouTube is watching this, please let me back into the partner program.
Oh, please, please, oh, please, oh, please.
I'll be good.
I'll be good.
Right, blessing?
Right, blessing?
Oh, yeah.
Are you going to show them the kitchen cam?
Not today.
Why not?
Guys, we got a kitchen cam.
So, so whenever I have women, you know, people always say to me, Pearl, why don't you go back to the kitchen?
Well, now I can mid-show.
Hello, hello.
Look, we got a kitchen cam, a kitchen cam up in here.
Okay.
So, guys, we are demonetized.
So, if you're feeling so kind, feel free to send a cash app or a Venmo.
And if I see it during the show, I'm going to check every like half hour or so.
Oh my gosh, or so, I will read it.
All right, I'll read it.
So, today, I believe, what did we title the show?
I titled it Modern Women Have Always Existed.
Was that it?
Yeah, that's it.
Okay, yeah.
So, I titled it, Modern Women Have Always Existed.
And the reason that I titled it that is because before I really started doing a deep dive into red pill conservative topics, I thought that all of this craziness we're seeing was new.
Now, to be fair, the level of craziness that we have now is definitely new.
Social media exacerbates it.
But the more I read through history, women have always been women.
And women have just, we see not all women.
I got to be careful here.
Sorry, guys.
Many, many women have acted many.
There are not the whole group, not the entire group.
Okay.
But a portion of women have always acted the same.
Modern women have always acted modern, and there have been modern women for hundreds of years.
And what made me think of this topic was reviewing my interview with Andrew Clavin.
And there are times in interviews, guys, where you're going back and forth with someone.
And I'm pretty sure they're wrong about something.
But, but, but you never know where the conversation's going to go.
You know, you go on a show and I'm labeled it's a conversation.
To be fair, it was a conversation.
It went where it went.
But I wasn't positive this topic was going to come up.
So I didn't have it off the top of my head.
Look, I'm human.
Not everything I can just recite off the top of my head.
I got to go double check.
And luckily, I double checked and brought it back to you.
So I'm going to show you guys the clip that I'm talking about.
And by the way, by the way, I just would like to add some corrections because I think there's a lot of things that we just repeat that are misconceptions and they're not, wait for it, true.
They're not true because this is just what we've been told.
Okay, so let's pull this up.
Well, I think, I think.
I just think objectively, like you can't say that's a good deal when women are paid to leave.
It depends.
It depends because before the laws went bad, they favored men in ways that were tremendously unfair.
And I could, I could match.
Okay, do you see my face right there?
That is the face of me thinking, I'm pretty sure that's not true.
I'm almost certain, but I don't think I can recite these laws off the top of my head.
But it's like, okay, you're trying to be respectful.
Okay.
I just want you to understand the reels of Pearl.
This guy's twice my age.
He's a really smart writer.
He's been doing this forever.
He wouldn't say it that confidently.
He wouldn't, if it wasn't true.
I mean, because, you know, like, he's a smart guy, smarter than me.
All right.
So, you know, but anyways.
Match every story.
I could match every story that you tell about bad men with stories of women that happened back in the day where they lost everything.
And that, so see, this is me thinking, is that true?
Doesn't sound true.
Okay, but let me there's writings from the 1800s of men complaining about divorce court then.
Yeah, but this isn't like a new, this isn't a new phenomenon.
Like there's writings from the 1800s talking about how the man is paying money to his opera.
Like his wife who's on, who's an opera singer and makes more than him.
Because naturally, I just think we have a society that naturally wants to protect women.
Yeah, but the literature on what happened to women in divorces is extensive and absolutely destructive.
I mean, you should.
What literature?
Oh my gosh.
See, this is me thinking.
Okay.
But again, again, again, this is me thinking, this is a guy smarter than me, right?
I mean, this is a guy.
I know he's a writer.
I know he works for the Daily Wire.
He's been doing this longer than I have.
He's got to be sure about this literature, right?
Right?
Am I right?
And I just want you guys to understand what's going through my head during these debates now.
To be fair, he probably is smarter than me, but I was pretty sure he didn't know what he was talking about with this top.
I was fairly sure.
I was fairly sure.
You should read some of the stuff from the 19th century.
What is it with the Daily Wire and always telling me to read?
Because what I'm about to show, it's like you guys read.
Like, okay, okay.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
And I liked Andrew.
I'm just, I'm just, you know, it's for the show.
Okay.
No offense.
No offense.
Don't take this offensively.
Okay.
I'm sorry if this is offensive.
I don't mean it to be.
I just, I want to add corrections.
Early 20th century that women, women were just.
But do you see me?
I'm like, I'm like, which stuff?
Because I'm fairly certain.
And look, I could be wrong.
I could be wrong.
You could, you could give me more information than I have now.
I could be wrong.
I'm not a perfect person.
You know, they lost everything.
No, I mean, look, it's what you're what you're actually you see.
That's what it's kind of well.
I see, why was my audio there?
Like, what was going on?
Was that you?
What was the audio was kind of off.
Could have been them.
I don't know.
I think that's what they say.
You think it was in there?
Sorry.
We'll give them tips next time.
Okay, but that's me asking which writings.
Now, normally, normally, I don't do that normally.
Okay, normally in a debate, I go in in good faith.
Meaning, I'm not going to just assume you're making stuff up.
I'm not going to assume that.
I'm going to assume I'm going in in good faith.
You're going in in good faith.
This has gotten me in trouble.
I'll tell you what.
And I do find it annoying in conversation when people say source, Because sometimes you just need a day to find.
I can get it to you.
I know where I found it.
But off the top of my head, it's like, just give me, give me a freaking second, guys.
Let me, let me get on a roll.
But this one, I was pretty sure he was wrong.
I wasn't positive, but I was pretty sure.
And was I right?
Was I wrong?
Okay.
Saying is an overcorrection of something that was bad before.
It hasn't always been like this.
I swear, this is my thought.
Are you sure?
You know, because, okay, guys, from my point of view, this is a guy twenty.
He's 70.
So you're trying to respect like he's an older guy.
You know, more, you're, you got more life experience, you know, you got more experience in media writing.
You know, you're smart.
I'm going to give you the CEO of smartness.
I'm going to give it to you.
You're smarter than me.
Congratulations, you know.
But I don't think you're correct.
I don't think you're right on this.
But, but, but I didn't know.
I didn't know the laws off the top of my head.
We're going to get to them.
And people have always struggled with, people have always struggled with the idea of marriage.
But see, you see how he keeps going.
I'm like, which, which ones?
Which, which, and I'm trying to be polite.
And then, yeah, I'm trying to be, anyways.
People have been attacking the idea of marriage since the 18th century.
I mean, women especially really started out saying that marriage is bad for women and we're, you know, we're losing all our rights.
We're losing all our property.
You know, it used to be that when you married somebody, your property became your husband's property.
You know, those are the laws that were actually in place.
And the first family.
Yeah, but men were also responsible for debt.
So any debt the woman incurred, it went on her husband.
Yeah, but she was so much less likely in those days to incur the kind of debt that women do now.
I mean, you know, this is strange.
What's strange to me?
No, what's strange to me is like, I was trying to, I hate it when I do that.
I lick my lips.
It's like a tick of mine.
I hate it when I do that.
Oh my God.
I get chapped lips, though.
You know, I think you have a solid central point, but you kind of have blown it up to something beyond you're carrying more weight than the argument will hold.
I think.
I just wanted to know which laws.
I'm sorry, guys.
I'm not, I'm what they call out of pocket today.
I'm out of pocket.
I just, I asked so many times, which laws, which laws, which laws?
Because I have found, I look for patterns, okay?
And I found this pattern.
You know, Pearl's a thinker.
I'm a real good thinker.
And I just look, I look for patterns.
And one pattern I've noticed is that whenever people say that things were so bad for women before, there's always, what do you call it, a catch.
So when you say, oh, the laws were so bad before, I'm like, were they?
Okay, what, what, what laws?
And I still, I'm still, I'm still a little lost.
I'm still a little lost in why and how.
I wish my mic was a little louder.
I'm like, how?
How?
How were we give me?
You can say that you're not effectively coaching women, coaching men to turn away from a high-risk, high-reward situation, which is what men do.
High-risk, high-reward is what men do.
Okay, well, my answer to that, I mean, I think it depends how high risk and how high reward.
I mean, what do they get now?
They get a wife that gains 80% of women gain 20 pounds in the first five years of marriage.
I mean, it's not like we're known for purity anymore.
So now they get a fat hoe.
I mean, there's exceptions, but they don't make the rule.
Okay, anyways, anyways, anyways.
And at what cost?
At what risk?
Anyways, that's not the point, though.
I actually didn't even want to go into that.
But, but, but what I wanted to talk about is the history of the laws.
Yes, guys.
Also, blessing.
Let me know if there's anyone I need to attend to in the chat, please.
You know, I can't, I have it on my phone right here, but it's kind of tough to watch.
Do you got it, blessing?
Yeah, and uh, Rachel is on as well.
Well, Rachel, we're going to bring her on in a little bit.
I'm going to go.
So, Rachel, if you're watching, I'm going to come to you.
One of my favorite collaborators.
Okay.
By the way, thank you to Dave, Dane Schneider for the $10 super chat.
Jason Richer, can't stay on, but thanks for making the world a better place.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cash App as well, Cash App.
Glenn Lawrence, we love Glenn.
Thank you for the $20 super chat, guys.
I'm going to try to keep going back.
So, this is from what I've researched.
Okay, now I'm going to give disclaimers here because everyone's just coming at me left and right.
I'm not a historian.
I'm just a gal that's trying to figure out what's true.
I've been raised by a school system that teaches me the opposite of what's true.
Okay.
I was raised to say I'm an evil colonizer, awful, you know, white lady, da And Pearl's just out here trying to, and you know, I was told I'm just so oppressed, so oppressed, but I'm just trying to figure out what's true.
So, from what I found, okay, basically, the reason that everybody thinks the reason that everybody thinks that women didn't have rights to their children is because there was some lady.
Let me let me get her name.
I understand.
It was a girl named Caroline Norton.
Caroline Norton was going through a divorce.
And for whatever reason, the husband had custody of the children.
It was Caroline Norton who brought the lack of maternal custody rights to the attention of the English public.
In doing so, she created the misperception, The misperception that under English law prior to 1839, fathers had absolute rights to the custody of the children.
Norton entered the world of child custody law when she separated from her husband and he refused to allow her access.
Basically, this chick wanted, she started looking at going through the legal process and she thought, nah, that's way too much work.
I'm just going to do what women do best.
Rewrite history.
Sorry, some women, not all women, some women, YouTube, some, some, some, not all.
Okay, rewrite.
Have you guys ever had a conversation with your girlfriend?
Maybe an ex, or we tell a story and you think that is not how it happened at all.
Please, guys, put a one in the chat if that has ever happened to you.
Are there any ones in the chat or am I just crazy making this stuff up?
Any ones in the chat, blessing?
Yeah, no, yeah.
No ones?
Oh, shit.
I hear that coming.
Dang it.
All right.
Well, maybe, maybe I'm just making it up.
Maybe I should just go, I should go home, you know.
Just kidding.
Okay.
Norton argued.
All right.
So, all right.
So there are two historians and previous historians misconstrue this information because of Norton's work.
Because Caroline Norton wrote all of this propaganda that mischaracterized family law.
Okay.
So Grossenberg and Mason, which are two historians, argue that under the system of English law inherited by the colonies and followed by the American courts well into the 1800s, the father had absolute right to the custody of his children.
Grossenberg and Mason use this characterization of English legal history to show how 19th century American law diverged from its British counterpart.
Under this analysis, the American court acted through the 19th century to replace the Britain system of parental rights with a jurisdiction that focused on maternal rights and the best interest of the child.
Norton argued for the passage of her proposed bill in two pamphlets that she distributed to members of parliament.
Gosh, I can't talk.
These pamphlets revolutionized the public perception of child custody laws by reframing it as an issue of mother and father's competing rights, noting that whenever the mother claimed custody against the father, the legal decisions that resulted made no reference to the mother's claim, but instead focused exclusively on the rights of the father.
Norton sets out to tell the formerly untold aspect of child custody law, that is the plight of mothers whose rights have been refused.
She details the pain that every mother feels at losing the custody of her child and expounds on the dangerous nature of the law that in many instances forced a mother to choose between the suffering at the hands, wait for it, wait for it again of a what of a what fellas abusive husband, of course, and losing access to her children.
So this story that we hear of the evil abuse of men has been around forever, forever.
Why do some women, not all women, YouTube, some, some, some do this In cases that followed, mothers who sought the custody of their children began to argue for this custody on the novel basis that maternal rights supersede paternal rights.
Now, again, I'm thinking, okay, in this interview, guys, I'm thinking, this guy is so much smarter than me.
He has to, and I'm not saying this to call him like not smart.
He's clearly a very, very intelligent guy, smarter than me.
But I'm just like, when I googled, when I googled parental rights, you know, when I googled child custody laws, last hundred years, because mind you, that's it.
That's a pretty long time ago.
That's 1893.
Okay.
The Infant Custody Act, the Infant Custody Act of 1873, changed the direction of the 1839.
By the way, that lady passed her law.
Changed the direction of the 1839 Act by indicating that the correct principle for deciding custody was the needs of the child rather than each parent.
Remember that.
Remember that.
Now, how did that get manipulated to favor women?
Women, wait for it, who were victims of wait for male violence in marriage were given protection under the matrimonial clause of 1878.
This allowed them to obtain a protection order from the magistrates court.
So it's the same, it's just the same thing over and over again.
Um, okay, a couple cases.
One is from 1789, Powell versus Clever.
Powell was widely considered to have the established principle that where a father refused to allow his child a wealthier lifestyle than one he himself could provide, then he failed to pay due attention to the interests of the child and therefore lost his parental right.
This principle was used in a series of cases removing children from the ground from fathers from the grounds of bankruptcy.
So, if men went bankrupt, I mean, man loses his job, he's out of luck, he's thinking, oh no, oh no, my job, I love my job.
Did they just take my kids too?
So, okay, Wellesy versus Beuf.
There was a man who had an affair.
Now, look it.
I don't promote having affairs.
Okay, many of you guys, many of you guys say, Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.
You're for cheating.
I'm not for cheating.
But I don't think it makes you a bad dad.
Okay.
I have people I know personally that had dads that look it.
I have a, I had a friend when I was younger.
I mean, her dad cheated on her mom with the stripper.
You know what I mean?
They stayed together.
She was happy.
They stayed together.
And he was a really great father.
He went to her games.
He supported her.
Man just liked strippers.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I personally, you might disagree, don't think that makes you a bad dad.
The same way I don't think it makes you a bad mom.
You could be a very involved mother and not be a good wife.
You could be a very involved father and not be a good husband.
Okay.
There's a man who had an affair and was involved an involved father to the point he homeschooled his children with servants and went to extensive lengths to look after his children.
He ended up going to prison because they took his kids after the wife died.
The family took the kids from the dead.
The wife passed away, all because he cheated.
Okay, so these are two cases that set precedence moving forward.
Okay, again, I'm not a legal expert, all right?
Now, how far back does this go?
From what I've found online, and you guys are welcome.
If there's corrections in the comments, you know, I'll come back.
I don't know.
Prior to this goes back to the 1600s with the parents, God, I can't talk.
The parents' petri doctrine, which is Latin for the parent of the nation.
In law, it refers to the public policy of the state to intervene against a wait for it, wait for it, abusive or neglectful parent.
now who just just knowing what we know maybe using common sense who's gonna use this Really and truly, who's going to lose access to the kids?
Okay.
The 1660 Tenured Abolition Act is a statute that ironically seems designed to strengthen fathers' rights.
The Tenures Abolition Act granted fathers the right to appoint guardians to their children by will.
According to Blackstone, the effect of the act was to extend the father's empire even after his death.
But by involving the courts in child custody, even as enforcers of the father's rights, the Tenures Abolition Act created a tradition of judicial intervention that would eventually undermine those rights.
The note traces the development from 1660 to 1839, whereby court supervision of testimony guardians led to the court supervisions of fathers themselves, transforming the empire of the father into the empire of the judge.
So I don't know what literature he was talking about.
But please enlighten me.
This is just what I found.
Then, on top of that, okay, so we got all the laws.
All right, so then we're going to talk about the legal subjugation of men.
Now, if you guys want to insult me because I'm not the best reader, you can kiss my.
I'm not going to use any offensive or bullying language, all right?
I promise.
Now, all right, this is from the legal subjugation of men.
And this is the father of the men's rights movement who wrote this, all right?
This was in the 1896.
So, this was, again, everyone says before the 60s, you know, 50s were just this magical time for men.
Women have always been women.
Men have always been men.
Some women, some men.
Okay.
All right.
It has always been in England.
It has always been in England been laid down as a fundamental law based on public policy that the custody of the children and their education is a duty incumbent on the father.
And mind you, mind you, that's incorrect because he's basing that off of the propaganda that was pushed in the 1830s.
That wasn't true.
Okay.
It is said to be so fundamental that he is not permitted to waive his exercise of right by prenuptial contract.
The rule of common law of England is in, of course, in harmony with the policy of all European and Christiandom, as well as with the historic conditions of the European social organization, if not with the primal instincts of the race.
Nevertheless, fundamental and necessary as the rule may be, the pro-feminist magistrates and judges of England are bent apparently on ignoring it with a light heart.
They have not merely retained the old rule that the custody of infants tender years remains with the mother until the age of seven.
Oh, yeah, I didn't even put that one in there.
The tender years doctrine assumes that women are better parents for the kids before the age of seven.
That's a sexist law.
That's literally, and that was passed in the 1800s.
What literature?
Please enlighten me, okay?
But they go much further.
As a matter of course, and without considering at the least the interests of the child or society at large, they hand over the custody and education of all women to the litigant wife whenever she establishes an easy thing to do, a flimsy and often ferrical case of the technical cruelty.
The victim husband has the privilege of maintaining the children as well as herself out of his property or earnings and has the added consolation of knowing they will be brought up to detest him.
So there we go.
Child alienation again.
None of this is new.
None of this is new.
Even in extreme cases where a deserting wife takes with her the children of the marriage, there is particularly no redress for the husband in narrow circumstances.
The police courts will not interfere.
The divorce courts, as already stated, is extensive to the point of prohibition.
In any case, the husband has to face a tribunal already prejudiced in the favor of the female, and the attendant scandal of processes will have no other result than to injure the children and their future prospects on life.
Okay, so what where does it favor women?
And maybe I'm wrong.
You know, I could be right.
I don't know.
But is Rachel still there?
She's still there.
Oh, yeah.
I was going to bring her up.
Okay.
Maybe I'm crazy.
I don't know.
I mean, Pearl's.
That's what they always say.
Pearl doesn't know anything.
Pearl did it.
Look at I'm just a normal chick.
I just, I just Google.
I just Google.
I was told I need to read more.
But, you know, I want to bring in someone that reads a lot.
She reads more than anyone I know.
You know, so many of you guys say, Pearl, Pearl just hates women and doesn't think they're smart.
I think this, I love this woman and think she's incredibly smart.
Welcome, Rachel!
Am I crazy for, like, pointing this out?
Am I wrong?
You're basically a historian up here.
So you tell me, am I wrong?
Can I guess?
I guess we were sleeping with somebody.
Oh, okay.
I extended it.
it to 16.
Oh, I didn't know that.
When did they do that?
I was
gonna ask you but, if you, what your thoughts were on this because guys guys, I know a good amount of stats, but my stats compared to Rachel, Rachel is like an encyclopedia.
It's so crazy and um okay I don't think women are more nurturing than men because and I'm gonna tell you there's I don't I'm gonna let you go off.
I'm gonna give you my three reasons.
Okay, one women are more like some women you two not all women but some women are more likely to commit abuse.
I found numbers around 70% of the time women commit abuse when it comes to children where infanticide is pretty much only done by women.
It's like rare.
They, when I was Googling it, said it's barely ever done by men and women.
One in three women's had an abortion.
So if you think, did you see that in the Clavin debate?
That was my favorite part when I, I said, he said that men commit more violent crimes.
And then I said, oh, you think abortion's murder, don't you?
Yeah.
Okay.
So what did, well, so what do you think?
Do you agree with me or disagree that women are less nurturing than men?