I came across this one by accident.
It was late at night. I was half-reading. The sort of historical footnote most people skim past without stopping. But I stopped, because my stomach tightened in that familiar way, recognition before understanding.
In early modern Britain and Ireland, when a man was believed to have “failed” at keeping order in his household, the community sometimes responded with something called a skimmington ride. In parts of England, it was called a charivari. In Ireland, the practice took quieter forms, but the logic stayed the same.
Public ridicule. Noise. Shame made visible.
The man became the lesson.
Reading about it, I felt unsettled. Not because the custom was cruel, though it was. However, the emotional logic behind it remains unchanged. We’ve just moved the crowd online.
This wasn’t a metaphor. This wasn’t gossip.
People would gather. Pots and pans were banged together. Effigies were carried through the village. Sometimes the man himself was paraded. Sometimes his wife was. Sometimes both.
The message was blunt. A man who didn’t “rule” his household had broken an unspoken contract.
I felt a strange pull reading those descriptions. Not curiosity. Not horror. Something closer to familiarity.
Because the point was about authority.
Historical records show something interesting. A man whose wife cheated in secret might avoid public consequences. A man whose household dynamics became visible was the one punished.
Visibility mattered more than behaviour.
What threatened the community was disruption. A woman acting outside expected obedience. A man no longer fitting the image he was meant to project.
The crowd responded by restoring order through humiliation.
That part hit me hard.
I’m not being marched through a village. No one’s banging pots outside my door. But I know that feeling of being measured against an invisible standard.
I know what it feels like to sense judgment before a word is spoken. To anticipate laughter that never quite comes, but could.
When Cherie chooses someone else, the old script says I should feel erased. That I should scramble to reassert myself. That I should perform stability.
The skimmington was about correction. And I’ve spent years unlearning that reflex.
Today, the village square looks like comment sections. Group chats. Podcasts. Political rhetoric.
The word “cuck” gets thrown around with the same purpose the skimmington once served. To signal that a man has failed at control. To warn others not to follow.
When I see that word used now, I don’t flinch the way I used to. I hear the echo of pots and pans. I hear fear dressed up as certainty.
Because the insult only works if you believe power comes from containment.
I don’t anymore.
The skimmington ride assumes something simple. That a man’s worth depends on his ability to enforce order. That desire must be managed, hidden, or punished.
My experience has taught me the opposite.
When I stopped trying to manage Cherie’s desire, I didn’t lose myself. I found a steadier footing. One that doesn’t depend on constant vigilance.
That kind of power doesn’t show well in crowds. It doesn’t make noise. It doesn’t reassure onlookers.
Which is why history keeps missing it.
Living here adds a layer most histories gloss over. Public spectacle was rarer. Enforcement was quieter. Reputation travelled faster than drums.
A man didn’t need to be paraded. A look could do it. A word passed in the pub. A tone shift.
The pressure to conform sat heavily. Still does.
That’s part of why this history matters to me, because it explains why even now, choosing openness feels transgressive. Not because it’s new in itself, but because it breaks an old rule.
I discovered that cuckolding didn’t invent humiliation. Communities did.
What I’m doing isn’t anything radical. It’s reflective. I’m choosing not to participate in the old correction ritual. I’m opting out of proving myself to a crowd that doesn’t know me.
The skimmington ride reminds me that shame was never personal. It was communal. Organised. Intentional.
And that means it can be refused.
I don’t read these stories and feel resentment.
The fear around cuckoldry is about losing a role. Once I stopped defending the role, the fear lost its grip.
I don’t need to be restored to order.
I don’t need to be corrected.
I live inside my choices now.
_______________________________________________________________________
If this stirred something, say where.
If it made you uncomfortable, name why.
If you recognised the crowd in your own head, write about it. |
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