Sexuality In Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others By Karras: Summary

Marriage is an important part of life of many modern societies. The institution of marriage was formed many centuries ago. While some of its aspects vary based on specific country or community, but the core is often the same – by contracting a marriage, both sides undertake specific commitments. Specifically, they promise to care about children that already exist or will appear in the family; or to be faithful to the partner. There is a serious problem with the second issue. Adultery is an event that was often mentioned by popular literature sources including the Bible. The poetry is not an exception. James Dickey and Anne Sexton focused on the topic in their poems “Adultery” and “For My Lover, Returning to His Wife” respectively. Authors described the theme from different points of view. Dickey highlights the considerable age of the practice and treats it as an inevitable evil. The adultery existed, exist and will continue to exist in the community. Sexton looks at the problem from the female point of view; her poem is written from the

This recognition of sodomy as the characterizing practice of homosexuals indicates society's general disregard of women as homosexuals. It was apparently beyond the capability of most people during the eighteenth century even to consider that women could engage in any practice so unnatural and strange. Women, themselves, used this disbelief to their advantage, as in the case of a woman suspected of homosexual involvement, a suspected "Mistress Clap, who was asked by a judge whether she had anything to say for herself. 'I hope it will be considered that I am a woman,' she replied briefly, 'and therefore it cannot be thought that I would ever be concerned with such practices"' (Hyde 64).

During the late 19th century, the ideals of middle-class, respectable sexuality were in a state of flux. Published findings by renowned psychiatrists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Sigmund Freud helped to recreate and build upon sexual knowledge, establishing never before heard of terms for a variety of sexual behaviors. Often, therein lies an implicit bias when codifying topics of study. Therefore, due to the major shifts during the late 19th and early 20th century in how sexuality is classified scientifically and medically, psychiatry plays a primary role in creating concepts such as “normal” and “abnormal” sexuality.

During the Renaissance period, sexuality impacted how people, both men and women, were treated and how they behaved. The lives of women were completely defined by the ideals of sexuality that were enforced during that time. Every area of a woman’s life from birth was influenced by outside influences rather than by they themselves. It took a particular type of woman to break past the clearly defined description of what a “Renaissance woman” should be.

    In contrast to our contemporary understandings, back in the late nineteenth and twentieth century sexology had just emerged and cast a new way of understanding. There were controversial views on sex and its benefits or dangerous. Our view of sexuality was quite intertwined with biblical and religious inputs. At this time understandings and terminology of same-sex sexual relations were linked with mental illness or considered sinful. Laws were in place to criminalize male sexual activity.

The medieval church taught that women were inferior to men and that they should be compliant and obedient to their fathers and husbands. Men look down to women as their respect for their ladies are limited as in Canterbury Tales were these women start out as beneath men. These same men who feel the need to arrogate women of their dignity find their fate is later put into the women’s hands. Although a women is taciturn and does not speak out to the men and talk of their animadversion toward the men’s behavior, these same ladies have the power to then decide how these men should serve their punishment for their sacrileges and unruly decisions as in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale”, were after his life was saved by an old lady, in return this old women requested to him to “take me as your wife” (p.138). A women’s love and passion should be approached with appreciation and admiration otherwise being inconsiderate and impassionate will turn a women against a man.

This document also reveals that the act of adultery was taken very seriously by the authorities to maintain social order among the civilization. King Hammurabi set some serious punishments, both to women and men, to ensure the well-being of people. As a matter of fact, if men and women don’t cheat on their partners due to severe punishments, there will be less fight among the people of the land, which means more prosperity. Also, we can understand that women’s sexuality was often sacrificed to ensure legitimacy towards their husband.

A woman’s only mission, in the 19th and early 20th century, was to get married, take care of her husband and have babies. Often, marriage was nothing more than a practical bond, in other words, a woman didn’t always choose a husband because she was in love. In the short story “The storm” by Kate Chopin and “Lamb to the slaughter” by Roal Dahl a contrast is created between the two main characters concerning the view of love and marriage. The view on the connection between marriage and love differs between Calixta from “The Storm” and Mary from “Lamb to the Slaughter” but coincide when it comes to the conception of marriage.

Vern L. Bullough's article, "On Being a Male in the Middle Ages," addresses how vital it was for a man living in the middle ages to be sexually active in order to maintain a masculine identity by explaining:

Also, sexuality and its role in the family life were greatly different for Jews who lived during the Middle Ages. For the Jewish community sexuality was often perceived as an important part of the marriage that was a blessing from God, while Christians thought that sexuality was a sin. The Jewish community placed emphasis on sexuality and the mutuality in a relationship in order for it to be healthy. This standard and the fact that Jewish people also believed that procreation was only obligatory for men demonstrates the vast difference between Jews and their counterparts. By finding sexuality to be an important part of marriage and thus the creation of a family, they isolated themselves from the Christians who believed this to be taboo. All

Sexuality is part of every culture and is used for many different purposes. Stories we tell create a normalization of the dominant version of sexuality in society. The borders of what sexuality can be are set within the normal. In both the Wicked + the Divine and Ceremony sexuality plays a major role. They are both trying to challenge the constraints that Western society places on sexuality, the role sexuality plays, and the cultural imposing of one version of sexuality on another. Those who have power do not have to obey the limitations placed on sexuality.

As the Wife explains, she used her sexual power to dominate her husbands. In an essay put out by Portland state University, it says that "In the Middle Ages, many members of the Church began to see sex and lust as a sin created by The Fall." This is further shown in Scripture itself in many places, one of them being 2 Corinthians 12:21:

The only thing a woman could do to escape this harsh judgment was to either enter a nunnery or marry and serve a man. By doing this, she was serving two lords: God and her husband. To not serve a husband through consummation and not serve God by entering a nunnery, would be viewed as a complete rejection of God. Thus, women were not only restrained by the political standards enforced men, but also the consciousness of the Church that

During the Italian Renaissance, the sexual environment of fifteenth-century Florentine society is described as Florentine men partaking in some kind of same-sex experience. These same-sex acts were not just wrong doings, but a fundamental part of Florentine masculine identity. More specifically I will focus on sodomy, the act of anal or oral sex, which can be heterosexual or homosexual. What I will be analyzing in this paper is the term sodomy in fifteenth-century Florence. The Church in Florence considered this act to be both criminal and sinful and it will be presented through government documentations from Gene Brucker’s anthology The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study. While the harsh treatment of sodomy was generally due to religious beliefs, I believe the act of sodomy in Florence established the harsh treatment it did not solely because of religious beliefs, but also due to social, moral, and demographic features.

Throughout history it is evident that human sexuality changes do to religious, governmental and societal influences. The perception of human sexuality has gone through many changes such as being very open and unlabeled activity; to being very “conservative” and a topic that shouldn’t be talked about in public or at all. In any case, human sexuality has always been a topic of interest because humans are sexual beings who want to understand the consciousness of themselves as male or female and see their personal response when encountered in erotic experiences with other individuals. Unlike many other species whose sexual force is strictly for reproduction, human’s sexual drive seems to be driven by many factors that intertwine with each other which leads to very different outcomes. Do to these obscure human emotions and personal gratification, sex is always shown every culture’s art, literature, social norms, and laws.