cont..Back then in that place, men did the fighting for the survival of their families and the power of their clans. Whether by hunting and providing or in battle to protect their property and its inhabitants, their lives were on the line. The system only worked if everyone knew and kept to their place in the system, accepting the authority of the leaders.
Claire, realizing that Jamie was relating the occurrences of his whippings at the hands of his father was explaining that he, too had to bear the punishment that he would reluctantly have to inflict on her to drive home the lesson that she had to accept his authority for him to ensure her safety AND keep his life if that were possible. Her leaving the place he had told her to stay put them both at risk,and he might have died in rescuing her as he had pledged. As she says, after hearing his stories, "I couldn't help but admire the job he had done. Without one word of direct explanation or apology, he had given me the message he intended. I gave you justice , it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy, too, as far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear."
She accepts the whipping which, of course, few of us modern women would ever accept, but afterwards while pretending to submissiveness, Claire draws her dagger and presses it against his chest, telling him that if he ever again raises a hand to her she'll 'cut his heart out and fry it for breakfast', whereupon Jamie asks for her dagger upon which he takes an oath that under pain of having his heart cut out, he swears by Jesus Christ and the 'holy iron' (dagger )that he will not raise his hand to her in 'rebellion or in anger'. Jamie, bless him, takes his oaths very seriously, although later on, he half-humorously says that there are times that he regrets taking this one. He, perhaps being so young and relatively naive, is open to some of Claire's anachronistic ways, as they are applicable to his times, accepting also that she is from 200 years in the future, and has knowledge that is ahead of his time.
Claire, on her side, cannot help being a know-it-all. She DOES know so much more than the inhabitants of the 18th century, and, as a nurse, frustrated at the lack of medical knowledge does as much as she can using her superior knowledge of herbals and physiology to remedy what suffering she can. She does have to learn to rein in much of her knowledge as proven by the incident where she is unwittingly arrested as a suspected witch because she happened to be at the home of Geillis Duncan who was under suspicion, and claimed to be one but also had a similar secret to Claire's.
Learning to live in a backward time is a constant challenge to Claire, and she makes a lot of blunders, causing peril to herself and those who care about her, but she is brave, doesn't shrink from danger, tries to do what she can to relieve suffering, and learns in time to read the people around her and try to act accordingly. And Claire does come to prefer the times and people of Jamie, the man she comes to love.
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