Speaker 1: School of Humans. Oh hello, filth heads. Hope you all
Speaker 1: had a great New Year if you're someone who you know,
Speaker 1: subscribes to calendars in the passage of time. But also,
Speaker 1: I don't want to force that on anyone if you're
Speaker 1: like not into that. And I think it's the New Year,
Speaker 1: so we should start off with a bang.
Speaker 2: So who's better than bang in? Then Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 1: That's right, we finally made it to old Benny boy
Speaker 1: and Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 2: You know him? But do you do?
Speaker 1: You do we really know the founders? Also, does it
Speaker 1: even matter what they actually thought? Because we spend so
Speaker 1: much time interpretating, interpretating, interpreting who they were and what
Speaker 1: they were trying to do.
Speaker 2: That we forget that other things were happening.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I am just going to succumb
Speaker 1: yet again to the historical kind of I guess basic
Speaker 1: bitchness of talking about Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 2: For today's episode.
Speaker 1: And I realized that I was actually kind of confused
Speaker 1: about him, which that's annoying. I thought he was like
Speaker 1: fucking around all the time, you know, and like had
Speaker 1: sex with a thousand French women as Flynn.
Speaker 2: But it might have not been that many.
Speaker 1: And also maybe it wasn't that at all, like some
Speaker 1: historians suggests that maybe he just liked the flirt and
Speaker 1: he didn't consummate that many of his relationships.
Speaker 2: You know, he wrote a lot.
Speaker 1: He wrote a lot of letters and essays and diaries
Speaker 1: and autobiographies and stuff.
Speaker 2: That's the thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe don't give a man a printing press, he's just
Speaker 1: gonna abuse it. And it definitely seems out with a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff he wrote, he wrote it with
Speaker 1: the intention of someone wanting to read it, you know.
Speaker 1: And he never like explicitly was like me and these
Speaker 1: French broads be fucking oh.
Speaker 2: Moste Franklin, we are not actually fucking.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, this accidents offensive all stop. Some historians argue
Speaker 1: that when he was like in France, he was older,
Speaker 1: so maybe he wasn't able to fuck as much, you know,
Speaker 1: And this Franklin biographer Paul Zahl described him as a
Speaker 1: foxy grandpa. He's like, yeah, he was just an old
Speaker 1: guy who liked to flirt, right, And sure, you could
Speaker 1: look at him as an old guy who liked to flirt.
Speaker 1: I mean you could also look at him as a
Speaker 1: serial sexual harasser. But whether or not, he was literally
Speaker 1: fucking people. It does seem that throughout his life he was.
Speaker 2: Horny af.
Speaker 1: Like I'm postulating that maybe he invented the lightning rod
Speaker 1: so he could like shock his balls or something, you know,
Speaker 1: my balls. In his widely popular autobiography, he does talk
Speaker 1: about his youthful self and being sexually provocative. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: this hard to be governed passion of my youth hurried
Speaker 1: me frequently into intrigue with such low women as spell
Speaker 1: in my way.
Speaker 2: Ps. I hate when low women fall in my way.
Speaker 2: It's so annoying.
Speaker 1: I might get out of the way low women anyway,
Speaker 1: these low women, which were attended with some expense and inconvenience,
Speaker 1: beside a continual risk to my health by a distemper,
Speaker 1: which of all things I dreaded, though by great good
Speaker 1: luck I escaped it. Basically, he's being like when I
Speaker 1: was young, I engaged with some prostitutes, and few I
Speaker 1: did not get syphilists.
Speaker 2: I am one lucky dog.
Speaker 1: But also I don't appreciate how he's painting himself as
Speaker 1: a victim here, like, Oh.
Speaker 2: No, the low women, they fell in my way.
Speaker 1: It was expensive and inconvenient, There was nothing I could
Speaker 1: do but have sex with them. But really, do you
Speaker 1: guys know what Benny Franklin was most horny for. He
Speaker 1: was horny for his work.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: He loved doing his job and writing stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: what are women compared to books and government? Yes that's
Speaker 1: a modified Jane Austen quote. Whatever, But obviously I do
Speaker 1: have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about Benjamin,
Speaker 1: about Benny boy, because while some people choose to remember
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin as this foxy grandpa haha, he he Benjamin
Speaker 1: Franklin actually had a wife and in my humble opinion,
Speaker 1: he treated her like absolute dog shit. So that's what
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, someone who rarely gets mentioned. I
Speaker 1: feel like when you hear about Benjamin Franklin, we're talking
Speaker 1: about his relationship with his wife. Here's a theme song.
Speaker 1: This is American Filth. I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I
Speaker 1: tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's
Speaker 1: episode bread crumbing Benjamin Franklin. You guys might be like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck does the title of this episode mean? Okay,
Speaker 1: so I think we're all familiar with ghosting. You know,
Speaker 1: it's where someone just erases their existence, stops responding to
Speaker 1: you after you've set some sort of precedent of connection
Speaker 1: with them. You know, they just don't show up, don't
Speaker 1: text back. I always like to personally assume they are dead,
Speaker 1: and then if I ever see them in public again,
Speaker 1: I fall to the floor weeping, wailing to God for
Speaker 1: this great miracle that they're still alive. Anyway, I'm a
Speaker 1: great person to know. But there's this other thing. It's
Speaker 1: called bread crumbing, where someone doesn't try to just ghost you,
Speaker 1: but basically they just like keep making promises to hang out, but.
Speaker 2: Then they never do.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like people who hold on to you
Speaker 1: and are relying on your emotional availability, but then they
Speaker 1: never fall through with it.
Speaker 2: That's bread crumbing.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, imagine if someone did that to you, where
Speaker 1: someone kept promising to hang out but then never did.
Speaker 1: But instead of just doing this over a few weeks
Speaker 1: or months, it happened over the course of ten years,
Speaker 1: and the person doing it to you being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll come back, I'll hang out soon. Is your husband,
Speaker 1: and your husband is Benjamin Franklin. That would suck, right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he did. That's what annoys me. About him,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna get to that at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode. I also just don't think he treated her
Speaker 1: very well in general. So let's start kind of at
Speaker 1: the beginning of their love story, I suppose. So his
Speaker 1: wife was named Deborah Reid and Bennie Boy he called
Speaker 1: her Debbie, and technically they weren't actually married, but they
Speaker 1: lived as a married couple. It was essentially a common
Speaker 1: law marriage, so as you can surmise, the way that
Speaker 1: they got together.
Speaker 2: Was a bit topsy turvy.
Speaker 1: When Benny Boy was a younger dude about seventeen years
Speaker 1: old in seventeen twenty three, he was living in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: you know, basically the Silicon Valley of the seventeen twenties
Speaker 1: because it had all of this hot tech, for example,
Speaker 1: the printing press. And the story goes, according to his autobiography,
Speaker 1: that one day he was walking around carrying some lobes
Speaker 1: of bread, one under each arm armpit bread, and then
Speaker 1: chomping down on a third. Debbie, a young lady, was
Speaker 1: standing outside her home's doorway on Marcus Street when she
Speaker 1: saw him, and she thought he looked so silly and
Speaker 1: weird but also endearing. It's like he's carrying all that
Speaker 1: bread and just like chomping down on one.
Speaker 2: That's so silly.
Speaker 1: She was, like, Benjamin Franklin, you have a most awkward,
Speaker 1: ridiculous appearance. But through a series of events, Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 1: actually became a border at Debbie's house and stayed there
Speaker 1: for about six months. And while he was there, they
Speaker 1: fell in love. Is that convenient just to have a
Speaker 1: boyfriend in your house? But the thing is, when Benny
Speaker 1: Boy proposed marriage in seventeen twenty four, Debbie's mom wouldn't
Speaker 1: let them get married because A he didn't seem very
Speaker 1: financially responsible.
Speaker 2: You know, he was basically a gig worker.
Speaker 1: And b he had recently been recruited by Pennsylvania's governor
Speaker 1: to go to London to run a printing house there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Benny Boy left Philadelphia boohoo, and he and Debbie decide
Speaker 1: to postpone any short of marriage plans. But then while
Speaker 1: Benny Boy was in London, he realized that the Pennsylvanian
Speaker 1: government had basically swindled him. There's actually no equipment waiting
Speaker 1: for him in London so that he could run a
Speaker 1: printing house, and he also had no money for a
Speaker 1: return ticket. So Benny sent Debbie a letter basically breaking
Speaker 1: up with her, because at that point he had no
Speaker 1: plans to return to Philadelphia, and also he probably realized
Speaker 1: that her mom would not let them get married anyway,
Speaker 1: so instead of getting dumped, he was being proactive by
Speaker 1: being the dumper. Also, you know, he was still in
Speaker 1: his youth, horned up, ready to go, and he did
Speaker 1: tell someone later that he had actually just mostly forgotten
Speaker 1: about his engagement to Debbie when he had reached London.
Speaker 2: And Debbie was probably very sad about this whole situation.
Speaker 1: She always seemed to be a little bit more into
Speaker 1: Benjamin than he was into her. But also her mom
Speaker 1: was trying to look out for her best interest. You know,
Speaker 1: She's like, if you marry Benjamin Franklin, you're gonna be poor.
Speaker 1: Look at him, he's dumb, and obviously his situation improves.
Speaker 1: But at the time, so instead, Debbie's mom persuaded her
Speaker 1: to marry a potter named John Rogers, because that's a
Speaker 1: more stable job a seramacist.
Speaker 2: But John turned out to be a piece of shit nutjob.
Speaker 1: It turned out that he was actually already married to
Speaker 1: someone in England, and then he spent all of Debbie's
Speaker 1: dowry and then fled to the West Indies, where presumably
Speaker 1: he died. But the problem is that it was too
Speaker 1: expensive to try to prove that he was dead, so
Speaker 1: unfortunately Debbie had to stay married to that rat. Technically
Speaker 1: women could self divorce at this point, but the church
Speaker 1: wouldn't allow another marriage, and without him actually being declared dead,
Speaker 1: she couldn't be a free and fun and thirty widow.
Speaker 1: And that's why I never trust a man who's into pottery.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Benny Boy came back to Philadelphia in seventeen twenty six,
Speaker 1: and despite being tricked by the governor, he returned with
Speaker 1: lots of prospects and fortune ahead. He had a lot
Speaker 1: of good printing work in his future and newspapers to make.
Speaker 2: When he got back.
Speaker 1: He did see Debbie from time to time in social situations,
Speaker 1: but she was so embarrassed about her potter husband that
Speaker 1: she rarely went out and did social activities.
Speaker 2: Benny was like, damn, I.
Speaker 1: Feel bad for her and everything she's gone through, but
Speaker 1: also she tried to dump.
Speaker 2: Me boo Debbie. But aha, Debbie.
Speaker 1: Would not be the only one who committed a folly
Speaker 1: or two. So remember how Bennie Boy mentioned in his
Speaker 1: autobiography that he was really horny when he was young, Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like he was so horny that he accidentally
Speaker 1: fathered a son.
Speaker 2: Whoopsies.
Speaker 1: He either met a low woman or another lady and
Speaker 1: made a kummi wami inside of her and made a baby.
Speaker 2: Whoopsies.
Speaker 1: But Benny he decided to be a nice guy, and
Speaker 1: when the baby boy was born, he took the child
Speaker 1: to raise. He was like, I shall raise his son
Speaker 1: as a proper good boy. And to this day no
Speaker 1: one knows who the mother was and why you know
Speaker 1: he couldn't marry her and be with her. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, Benjamin Franklin taking the kid. That was a rare,
Speaker 1: unprecedented act for its time. Usually they would just leave
Speaker 1: the bastards behind. But the thing is, then Benny Boy
Speaker 1: was a bit in a predicament because he was like,
Speaker 1: I cannot raise a child on my own. I am
Speaker 1: important and I am a man. That would be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I need some lady to raise this child. But what
Speaker 1: good lady in her right mind would raise someone else's child.
Speaker 1: I would need a woman who has no other prospects,
Speaker 1: whose dowry has been squandered by someone else who died
Speaker 1: in the West Indies and someone who likes me enough
Speaker 1: to raise my bastard. Oh my god, how convenient, I'll
Speaker 1: ask sad ass Debbie. So, even though Debbie couldn't technically
Speaker 1: get married, she and Bennie Boy agreed to a common
Speaker 1: law marriage. On September first, seventeen thirty, she moved into
Speaker 1: his house and became the mother to his bastard, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, also had a name.
Speaker 2: His name was William. And the thing is Bennie and Debbie.
Speaker 1: They had a very long marriage, and it does seem
Speaker 1: that for much of the marriage they had a perfectly
Speaker 1: fine relationship. But at the same time it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: that Bennie was actually that into her sexually. They did
Speaker 1: have two kids together, a boy named Francis who died
Speaker 1: of smallpox at a very young age, and then after
Speaker 1: Francis died, they had Sarah. But Bennie Boy described Debbie
Speaker 1: pretty disparagingly in a lot of his letters. For example,
Speaker 1: he compared her body to a beer mug. I mean,
Speaker 1: not the hottest form, I guess. And then there's this
Speaker 1: account of one of Benjamin Franklin's friends coming over, and
Speaker 1: Debbie was like on the floor wailing and yelling at.
Speaker 2: Him, Fuck you, Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 1: So obviously it was not a perfectly harmonious situation in
Speaker 1: their household. I mean, also, being a woman at the
Speaker 1: time probably sucked because you just had to raise children
Speaker 1: and shit, which sounds boring as fuck, no offense. I mean,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, this marriage was awesome for Debbie,
Speaker 1: she didn't really have any other choice, but also it
Speaker 1: seems that she got a little stressed out because of
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin. But we know from Benjamin Franklin's perspective that
Speaker 1: the marriage was good for him because it tempered his
Speaker 1: horned upness. He wrote a very silly essay in the
Speaker 1: form of a letter in seventeen forty seven called a
Speaker 1: Letter on Marriage. Another title of this essay is Advice
Speaker 1: to a young Man on the choice of a Mistress.
Speaker 1: It's basically addressing a man who is not interested in
Speaker 1: getting married, and the gist of it is Franklin is
Speaker 1: trying to be like, no, marriage is good, you gotta
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: But he says, if you don't get married and you
Speaker 2: still want to.
Speaker 1: Fuck around, I really recommend you get a mistress who
Speaker 1: is older than you. That's right, Find you a cougar,
Speaker 1: find you a milf, because they are better mistresses. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to share some of this essay in the
Speaker 1: episode because yeah, it's a satire, Yeah it's comedy, but
Speaker 1: I feel like there's probably some truth about how Benjamin
Speaker 1: Franklin felt about marriage in it. And I'm not actually
Speaker 1: gonna read the letter myself, okay. One reviewer of this
Speaker 1: show said, I sound like a nervous twelve year old
Speaker 1: boy giving a book report in an aggressive monotone, which,
Speaker 1: while you might think it's a criticism, is actually just accurate.
Speaker 1: So I'm getting my boyfriend to read it. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: boys and girls, I have a boyfriend. Okay, I need
Speaker 1: you to sound like you are Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 2: Can you do it? I'm Benjamin. No, that's too much.
Speaker 2: Just read the fucking letter.
Speaker 3: Thing, my dear friend. I know of no medicine fit
Speaker 3: to diminish the violence natural inclinations you mention, and if
Speaker 3: I did, I think I should not communicate it to you.
Speaker 3: Marriage is the proper remedy. It is the most natural
Speaker 3: state of man, and therefore the state in which you
Speaker 3: are most likely to find solid happiness. Your reasons against
Speaker 3: entering into it at present appear to me not well founded.
Speaker 3: The circumstantial advantages you have in view by postponing it
Speaker 3: are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison
Speaker 3: with that of the thing itself, the being married and settled.
Speaker 3: It is the man and woman united that make the
Speaker 3: complete human being separate. She wants his force of body
Speaker 3: and strength of reason, he her softness, sensibility, and acute discernment.
Speaker 3: Together they are more likely to succeed in the world.
Speaker 3: A single man has not nearly the value he would
Speaker 3: have in that state of union. He is an incomplete animal.
Speaker 3: He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.
Speaker 3: If you get a prudent, healthy wife, your industry and
Speaker 3: your profession with her good economy will be a fortune sufficient.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the wife part of the essay. The
Speaker 1: next part is the milf part, which is and it's
Speaker 1: not really necessary for this episode, but I will have
Speaker 1: my boyfriend read the rest of it at the end
Speaker 1: of the episode because it's very funny. But the annoying
Speaker 1: thing about this marriage part is that he says that
Speaker 1: marriage will make you more successful in the world. He says,
Speaker 1: it makes you a more complete human. You know, together
Speaker 1: you will succeed in the world. But in the later
Speaker 1: part of their marriage, Benjamin Franklin basically leaves Debbie all
Speaker 1: alone for two decades.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be right back after these soothing advertisements.
Speaker 1: So in seventeen thirty six, Debor Reid and Benjamin Franklin's son, Francis,
Speaker 1: died of smallpox, which is surprising because Benjamin Franklin was
Speaker 1: a huge proponent of this new thing called inoculation, Like,
Speaker 1: why had he not inoculated his son if he was
Speaker 1: so into it. Some people think that maybe Francis was
Speaker 1: already sick as fuck by the time they could have
Speaker 1: inoculated him. But some other people think that maybe Debbie
Speaker 1: prevented it from happening, and then Benjamin Franklin held that
Speaker 1: against her for the rest of their marriage and over
Speaker 1: decades of being married. Maybe this resentment and bitterness built
Speaker 1: up until he just didn't really want to have much
Speaker 1: to do with her, Or maybe he was just I
Speaker 1: don't know, too preoccupied with the us being independent or
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't go back in time. I can't ask him.
Speaker 1: So basically, for two decades, starting in the seventeen fifties,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin spent most of his time in England, and
Speaker 1: while he was there, Debbie was not. In his defense,
Speaker 1: Benny Boy had asked Debbie to come along to London,
Speaker 1: but she refused. She was terrified of the ocean and
Speaker 1: traveling by boat. I mean, why would you not. The
Speaker 1: bottom of the ocean is heinous. I mean they didn't
Speaker 1: even know what it looked like back then, but Debbie
Speaker 1: maybe got a sense about all those creepy things at
Speaker 1: the bottom. So he headed over there in seventeen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: and that's when all the bread crumbing began. So when
Speaker 1: he left, he was like, yeah, I'll be home soon.
Speaker 1: But then he didn't come back for five years. Then
Speaker 1: he was home for a little bit, and then he
Speaker 1: left again, and then he wasn't back for what ten years,
Speaker 1: And here's the pattern that would happen. He would send
Speaker 1: letters and he'd be like, oh, yeah, I'll be back
Speaker 1: in a few months. I'll be back at the end
Speaker 1: of spring. And then spring would come around and then
Speaker 1: he'd be like, well, just kidding, maybe I'll come back
Speaker 1: at the end of fall or something, or maybe I'll
Speaker 1: come back in the winter, but actually now the ocean
Speaker 1: it's too cold. I don't want to go now, so
Speaker 1: maybe next year. And he kept doing this. Also just
Speaker 1: seems that Benjamin Franklin wasn't really communicating.
Speaker 2: With Debbie very well.
Speaker 1: Like the second time he was over in London, the
Speaker 1: one where he'd be gone for ten years, Debbie sent
Speaker 1: him a letter where she said, oh, I have been
Speaker 1: so happy as to receive several of your dear letters
Speaker 1: within these few days. She said that she had been
Speaker 1: reading it over and over again and quote, I call
Speaker 1: it a husband's love letter, but really she might have
Speaker 1: been saying that to be a bit manipulative. She was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, that's so nice of you to write me.
Speaker 1: How nice of you to remember that I exist, the
Speaker 1: woman who bore two of your children and also raised
Speaker 1: your friggin bastard. What a kindness that you would deign
Speaker 1: to write to me. Also, when you left back in February,
Speaker 1: you said you'd be gone a few months, and now
Speaker 1: it's freaking October and you're not telling me when you're
Speaker 1: gonna come back. And here's the crazier thing about this,
Speaker 1: so he kept doing that thing where he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll come back with then he wouldn't.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, do you know what happened?
Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty nine, Debbie had a stroke, and even
Speaker 1: after that, Benjamin Franklin did not come home.
Speaker 2: She kept asking him.
Speaker 1: She was like, Babe, I'm sorry to bother you, but
Speaker 1: when might you perchance be coming home?
Speaker 2: I had a stroke, kay almost.
Speaker 1: Died And at this point, even after her fucking stroke,
Speaker 1: he was just ignoring her. He didn't offer her any
Speaker 1: clarity on when he would come back until July seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy one. He was basically like, yeah, I'll be here
Speaker 1: for one more winter and then I'll come home. But then,
Speaker 1: guess what, he postponed it again, and then many more times,
Speaker 1: and then it was seventeen seventy four, and that year
Speaker 1: again twice he said he'd return and didn't.
Speaker 2: And then in.
Speaker 1: December of seventeen seventy four, Debbie had another.
Speaker 2: Stroke and she died.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically there was like a five year period
Speaker 1: in which she had a stroke, he didn't come back,
Speaker 1: and then she had a stroke and died, and yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: during this time there was a lot of important shit
Speaker 1: going down, like a revolution was about to start. But whatever,
Speaker 1: I still don't like it. Fuck you, Benjamin Franklin. And
Speaker 1: can you guys believe that that even after she died,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, her husband, he didn't feel compelled to immediately
Speaker 1: come home, you know, to like go to Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: help with funeral stuff and say goodbye to her before
Speaker 1: she was.
Speaker 2: Put in the ground. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: He didn't come back to Philadelphia until the following year,
Speaker 1: May seventeen seventy five, at which point the American Revolution
Speaker 1: was already happening. So it's just like men are so predictable,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like I'm not going to come home
Speaker 1: and tend to my sick wife, but I will come
Speaker 1: home for war. Men love war more than women, don't
Speaker 1: you dare dissect that statement.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the stress Debbie was under just waiting
Speaker 1: for her husband, just like being in this sort of
Speaker 1: like limbo where you're like, well, you're coming back, I'm
Speaker 1: preparing the house, I'm preparing everything for your return, and
Speaker 1: then he just doesn't arrive, and also doesn't communicate about
Speaker 1: him not arriving that sounds so stressful, and you know
Speaker 1: it causes a stroke high blood pressure, and where do
Speaker 1: you get high blood pressure from.
Speaker 2: Being stressed out?
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Benjamin Franklin killed his wife. And yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: me saying that Benjamin Franklin killed his wife that is
Speaker 1: some revisionist history, or some people would say wild conjecture
Speaker 1: and absolutely incorrect, but whatever, I'm standing by my hyperbolic statements.
Speaker 1: So yeah, guys, that is why I am pissed off
Speaker 1: at Benjamin Franklin. I know you guys were wondering the
Speaker 1: New Year how I felt about him, and that's how
Speaker 1: I feel.
Speaker 2: P PW.
Speaker 1: I put in these cannon sounds because this is a
Speaker 1: big moment for everyone learning my opinion on Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 1: So cannons, so I know, promise the rest of the
Speaker 1: marriage letter, where Benjamin Franklin talks about how if you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a mistress, it's better to have a milf.
Speaker 2: I'm tagging my boyfriend back into read it.
Speaker 1: But just remember earlier in the letter he was like,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, you should get married.
Speaker 2: Why would you not, you idiot?
Speaker 1: But if you don't, Okay, now we're doing the next
Speaker 1: part of the letter, So start right there.
Speaker 2: But if you will not tag me Noah.
Speaker 3: But if you will not take this council and persist
Speaker 3: in thinking of commerce with the sex inevitable, then I
Speaker 3: repeat my former advice that in all your amours you
Speaker 3: should prefer old women to young ones. You call this
Speaker 3: a paradox, and demand my reasons. They are these. One
Speaker 3: because as they have more knowledge of the world, and
Speaker 3: their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is
Speaker 3: more improving and more lastingly agreeable. Two because when women
Speaker 3: cease to be handsome, they study to be good to
Speaker 3: maintain their influence over men. They supply the diminution of
Speaker 3: beauty and augmentation of utility. They learn to do a
Speaker 3: thousand services small and great, and are the most tender
Speaker 3: and useful of all friends when you are sick. Thus
Speaker 3: they continue amiable, and hence there is hardly such a
Speaker 3: thing to be found as an old woman who is
Speaker 3: not a good woman. Three because there is no hazard
Speaker 3: of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconvenience.
Speaker 3: Four Because through more experience, they are more prudent and
Speaker 3: discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce
Speaker 3: with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation
Speaker 3: and with regard to theirs. If the affairs should happen
Speaker 3: to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined to
Speaker 3: excuse an old woman who would kindly take care of
Speaker 3: a young man, form his manners by her good counsels,
Speaker 3: and prevent his ruining his health and fortune among mercenary prostitutes. Five,
Speaker 3: Because in every animal that walks upright, the deficiency of
Speaker 3: the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the
Speaker 3: highest part. The face first grows lank and wrinkled, then
Speaker 3: the neck, then the breast, in arms, the lower parts
Speaker 3: continuing to last as plump as ever so that covering
Speaker 3: all above with a basket, and regarding only what is
Speaker 3: below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to
Speaker 3: know an old from a young one. And as in
Speaker 3: the dark, all cats are gray, the pleasure of corporal
Speaker 3: enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and
Speaker 3: frequently superior, every knack, being by practice capable of improvement.
Speaker 2: Six.
Speaker 3: Because the sin is less, the debauching of virgin may
Speaker 3: be her ruined and make her for life unhappy. Seven
Speaker 3: because the compunction is less. The having made a young
Speaker 3: girl miserable may give you frequent bitter reflections, none of
Speaker 3: which can attend the making an old woman happy. Eighthly,
Speaker 3: and lastly, they are so grateful, but still I advise
Speaker 3: you to marry directly, being sincerely your affectionate friend.
Speaker 1: As the older woman in our relationship, Is this how
Speaker 1: you think of me?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Ah to cover me with a basket. Anyway, dear filth heads,
Speaker 1: please remember that this is a comedy podcast and me
Speaker 1: saying Benjamin Franklin killed his wife is crazy. But like Debbie,
Speaker 1: I have also been at the whim of men who
Speaker 1: kept promising to hang out but then never did, and
Speaker 1: it drove me insane.
Speaker 2: So I'm taking all this very personally.
Speaker 1: Also, I did include several real facts throughout this episode. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to compose myself. Not all the episodes
Speaker 1: are gonna be like this. I swear to God, I
Speaker 1: was just passionate. So in American filth we always learn
Speaker 1: something from the episode. There's always a moral to take
Speaker 1: away from it, and you know, to counter my bias,
Speaker 1: I will try to say something from ben Jamin Franklin's perspective.
Speaker 1: From his point of view, be empathetic to him. So
Speaker 1: what I think we learned from this episode is that
Speaker 1: wives are so fucking annoying. Why would you pester me
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about war and stuff?
Speaker 2: Leave me alone? Yuck. Anyway, let's roll the credits.
Speaker 1: American Field is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. This episode was written and hosted by Me
Speaker 1: Gabby Watts. The theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 1: Senior producers Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. Please leave the show a review,
Speaker 1: follow it, give it some stars, whatever, make the algorithm
Speaker 1: work so we can keep making the show. And you
Speaker 1: can also follow the pod on Instagram at American filth Pod.
Speaker 2: Pocket you next week School of Humans