"Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time"
About this Quote
Lewis compresses anthropology, nostalgia, and cultural criticism into a few spare sentences. He gestures toward the prehistoric pattern of human life in which men, away from domestic spaces, formed bands to hunt, fight, build, and deliberate. The separateness is not a sneer at women but a reminder that friendship, as he elsewhere argues, often grows where people stand side by side before a shared task or truth. The final three words, We had time, supply the crucial ingredient: unclaimed hours that allow camaraderie to ripen from mere cooperation into loyalty, humor, and joint purpose.
Across his essays on love and community, Lewis laments how modern life squeezes that margin. Romantic love and family take a larger share of attention; work colonizes evenings; entertainment nibbles what remains; and mixed company is now the default. None of this is bad in itself, but it changes the ecology in which certain kinds of friendship thrive. He believed earlier ages granted social permission and practical opportunity for male circles to form, whether in guilds, regiments, colleges, or clubs. With permission and time came continuity, and with continuity came culture: habits of plain speaking, shared standards, and the sharpening of minds by friends who care more about the common project than about one another’s egos.
The line also exposes the assumptions of his era. He writes as a mid-century Englishman, steeped in classical and medieval models, and his gendered framing reflects that world. Yet the insight travels beyond it. Any deep friendship requires protected time, a degree of freedom from performative pressures, and a shared object of attention. Where people cannot step aside from the incessant claims of romance, family, and productivity, friendship withers into networking or pastime. Reclaiming time and space for purposive companionship—among men, women, or mixed groups—recovers what he thought a human birthright: doing things together, not to escape love or duty, but to make room for another form of love to flourish.
Across his essays on love and community, Lewis laments how modern life squeezes that margin. Romantic love and family take a larger share of attention; work colonizes evenings; entertainment nibbles what remains; and mixed company is now the default. None of this is bad in itself, but it changes the ecology in which certain kinds of friendship thrive. He believed earlier ages granted social permission and practical opportunity for male circles to form, whether in guilds, regiments, colleges, or clubs. With permission and time came continuity, and with continuity came culture: habits of plain speaking, shared standards, and the sharpening of minds by friends who care more about the common project than about one another’s egos.
The line also exposes the assumptions of his era. He writes as a mid-century Englishman, steeped in classical and medieval models, and his gendered framing reflects that world. Yet the insight travels beyond it. Any deep friendship requires protected time, a degree of freedom from performative pressures, and a shared object of attention. Where people cannot step aside from the incessant claims of romance, family, and productivity, friendship withers into networking or pastime. Reclaiming time and space for purposive companionship—among men, women, or mixed groups—recovers what he thought a human birthright: doing things together, not to escape love or duty, but to make room for another form of love to flourish.
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| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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