A summary of the doctrine of chivalry (and not only towards women)

[fpb]

AS
the purpose of wisdom is to enlighten ignorance
AND AS
the purpose of wealth is to relieve poverty,
SO
the purpose of strength is to defend weakness.

This seems, once stated, all too obvious; but it is really revolutionary as compared with the apparently universal belief that the purpose of strength is to compel weakness.

Comments

[luckymarty.livejournal.com]

While the wisdom element has been widely recognized, I don't think the second term has been nearly as common. The duty of generosity isn't quite the same thing as saying "the purpose of wealth is to relieve poverty." It is certainly true that it was viewed as improper to use wealth exclusively for your own benefit, but specifically aiming it at relief of the poor is uncommon.

Another example: a Greek would have viewed it as the duty of the rich man to use his wealth to support, strengthen, and glorify the polis -- say, by outfitting a trireme or maintaining a temple. If that happens to benefit the poor members particularly, well and good, but that's more or less incidental.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I disagree. If you read for instance the Mabinogi of Pwyll and Pryderi, or Cullhwch and Olwen, you will find that a prince is expected to give whatever he is asked for, by any beggar who comes around. And alms are a major duty, prescribed in Hindu law (the Manava Dharmashastra). What is misleading is that most of these things were prescriptions for rural societies, where people tended to know each other, and everyone knew who was in need. A class of the poor does not really come into existence until the great cities begin to arise, and even so old values still prevail: Rome at the height of its importance, with more than a million inhabitants, was a network of clientships in which each important citizen gave one meal a day (Juvenal complains of their quality) to literally hundreds of clients. That a lord should be a giver is a commonplace in the Indo-European world at least, and I would be surprised if it were different anywhere else.