Of course he didn't write his book to be read by twenty-first centruy anybody. He wrote it for people to read in his own day.

Yeah I kinda knew that ;) *is not entirely stupid*

Well, it is an interesting point after all, to think of how older works should be viewed. I've known of school systems in the U.S.A. that have banned works by Mark Twain from their libraries because the books contain the word nigger in several places. I personally don't think that is a justified practice, since at the time it was common speak in the States to refer to blacks that way. It doesn't do a book justice to judge it by modern standards.

I had a research paper censored for a competition by an English teacher a couple of years ago. Because I used the word "negro," since that had been the appropriate terminology at the time I was writing about.

(She was probably involved in book-burnings, anyway, the nazi.)

How many years ago was a 'couple of years'? I don't remember a single time in my working memory of that word ever being acceptable... Sorry for my recent absence, by the way.

...because that had been the appropriate terminology at the time I was writing about.

That kind was terminology was fluently employed and widely accepted in the United States from its adoption of slavery all the way up to the mid-twentieth century. 

A couple = two, last I checked. ;P And I know that. Like I said, in citing the paraphrased views of the time into my paper, I used the word "negro." Shame on me.

Romance novels blow. But as for the woman being the weaker sex..I don't know. I have mixed emotions on this subject. I like both aspects.  I have played many rpg characters that would kick the snot out of any man. I love to read adventurous tales of brave women who have taken up the sword to defend their family or their lands when the men have failed. 

But on the other hand, I tend to like the opposite better. Most of my favorite books involve women who are strong minded but rather weak in body. I just love the whole "damsel in distress" plot where the knight in shining armour saves the young maiden from certain doom. 

I guess that just makes me a sap, LOL

Kidding me? I love the damsel in distress plotline. To me your villain is never more potent than when a pretty, innocent, and defenseless virgin-type becomes the victim. But on the other side of the gender-coin (which doesn't work in soda machines, it turns out) most of the female characters I write or play are relatively if not exceptionally tough.

Maybe, like most things, Sophrosony is the key? (I think that's the right word) Moderation in all things?

In my series of stories that I am compiling into one giganto novel, the main character is bordering evil when you first meet him. Then, in comes the heroine. You slowly see a change in him but he remains the badarse when it counts. The heroine is a simple girl who would just as likely faint at the sight of blood.

that's a good idesa. i, too, evolve my characters as the swtory develops. The main character for the first book in my series is originaqlly very shy and introverted. By the end, however, due to a combination of the efforts of the heroine, and the heroine's parents, he end up heading a rebve;lion against the Kingdom, and therefore against his own father.