Sexuality in the Renaissance

Women in Renaissance Italy faced rigid societal standards to which they were supposed to conform. They lived public lives, directed almost exclusively by other people in regards to significant decisions. However, this does not mean that a rise above the oppressive nature of the Renaissance was impossible. Several exceptional women were able to challenge their given positions in a society through their education, practices, seclusion, beauty, and roles. In an examination of several positions, through the Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please by Lucrezia Marinella and the letters of Laura Cereta, a Renaissance feminist, women can be seen as accepting of their position in society or rebelling against it. Their lives and prescriptive writings show how one can either follow the role given to them or exceed beyond it and become an exceptional woman.

Brucker uses these individuals and their story to analyze renaissance society as a whole. Throughout the book, he emphasizes the strict social hierarchy and expectations of each class. He argues that although theoretically the same rules applied to every stratum of renaissance society, the standards to which each person were held and limitations they faced greatly depended on their class and gender.

Women had great social pressure on them to marry. Young girls were often married by the age of 13 or 14 . It was socially unacceptable if women were not married by the age of 25 . Marriage was mostly for economic benefits, not romantic situations. A wedding, rather than a religious ceremony, was a civil contract that set the responsibilities and duties of husband and wife . Once married, they legally became one with their husbands. Married women had no control of their earnings, inheritance, property, and also could not appear in court as a witness nor vote . Their husbands, therefore, were responsible for all aspects of their wife including discipline .

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

As a result, women didn’t have a renaissance in terms of the way people regarded them, as attitudes regarding women from the middle ages continued right through the Renaissance.

The emergence of the Renaissance throughout Italy gave rise to the philosophy of humanism; rather than submitting to tradition, those situated lower on the social hierarchy began to question their situations. This lead to an increase in educational pursuits coupled with social and political upheaval. Early Renaissance feminists began to voice their concerns regarding the rights and equality of women in a heavily patriarchal society using literature, art, and politics. Laura Cetera’s Defense of Liberal Instruction for Women and Lucrezia Marinella’s The Nobility and Excellence of Women are both feminist pieces of the time. While both authors advocate for the political and social advancement for women, Cereta and Marinella’s differing experiences

The men don’t usually work and are expected to watch the children (hence the term “housebound”) so they don’t have any access to money. They are made to be fully dependent on their woman. Even when engaging in sexual activity there are permissible positions and others that are regarded as dirty or deviant because the man is in control, which is unacceptable. It’s very interesting because the same can be said of modern society today. Women often have little access to financial means and have long since been expected to stay home with the children and let the husband work. This can actually be better explained when looked at on the macro-level. Though this book isn’t about a nation it’s fairly well-spread and established that women are in control of everything. There are some societies that differ in the treatment of men but it’s still a matriarchal situation.

Scheper-Hughes provides a controversial breakdown of the mothers' evident lack of concern to the death of their babies as not a repression of grief, but as a plan for endurance. The mothers, by allowing themselves to form attachment to only the babies who have already verified their capability to survive by doing so during early infancy, these women can increase the existence odds of their strongest children. Modern ideas about "mother love," and about mother-infant bonding as a naturally occurring process that in general occurs in the first few moments of a baby's life, are the cultural result of the statistical differences which allows women to give birth to just a few children, each of which she may be expecting to raise to adulthood.

"Upon marriage, woman became the legal wards of their husbands, as they previously had been of their fathers while still unmarried" (Martin, 68). It was common for a father to sell his young daughter into marriage and the young women had no say in her preference of her suitors (Mahaffy, 48). This was done while the girl was in her young teens while the groom was ten to fifteen years older (Martin, WEB2). As the father, or guardian, gave the young girl away he would repeat the phrase that expressed the primary aim of marriage: "I give you this women for the plowing [procreation] of legitimate children" (Martin, WEB2). The woman’s role was primarily in the home. "Households thus depended on women, whose wok permitted the family to economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis" (Martin, WEB2).

In the Middle Ages from 476 CE- 14th century almost all of the power of women was determined by biblical references. The average woman in a rural area had the duty of making clothes from wool, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children. The women in town often were tasked in purchasing and trading goods and the normal housekeeping. In extreme cases women were known as witches. Other women became nuns and got involved in spiritual matters. In the year 1000 traditional marriage that involved getting married for financial reasons became less common. Although the parents still assisted in choosing the spouse it was becoming freer to choose who to marry. The woman was essentially owned by a male guardian almost like a child. However, if a rich widowed woman decided she did not want or have another guardian available, she was able to have her own name. During the Middle Ages many rich women were able to participate in things such as art, music or writing. It was rare for a woman not that well off to be able to purchase the tools or have the education to do art, music, or writing. All the rules developed depended on how

Men die in battle; women die in childbirth” (Gregory 1). This quote from the historical novel “The Red Queen” presents a straightforward reality that women and men believed before the advancements of modern medicine. In accordance with past social norms the time periods between the 17th and 19th century have shown that women would always hold the role as the weaker sex. Between the prejudice of men who considered themselves superior and the way history portrayed woman in a submissive light, there was no understanding of what women experienced throughout their lives. There may have been a few incidences that made an appearance here or there, but their significance would soon lose recognition in the masses of that time. Unfortunately, the only role that was considerably memorable for women during these eras was marrying into a well-off family and producing children. Still, even in this aspect of their lives women were viewed as inadequate. Childbirth held no advantage for men and midwifery was considered a profession that only a woman would be fitted for. In the late 1800’s a prominent surgeon by the name Sir Anthony Carlisle even went as far as to say that midwifery was a “humiliating office” and therefore “suitable only to women”( Massey 1). However, comments and thoughts like this would prove to be invalid as men became more immersed in the practice of childbirth. Fear of death led women of higher status away from traditional practices of female midwifery and they turned

On the other hand, female’s role in society was to be wives. They take care of the children, do housework, or go to work which is limited to unskilled jobs or agriculture labor. Having a lot of children was a terrible panic for women because they had to go through the childbirth without medical access. Especially, women in working class families had to go back to work right after giving birth without taking any medicine because they needed money for the other children. Mothers’ health declined if they kept getting pregnant, so women tried many ways to prevent having children. However, most of the methods were not safe and sometimes dangerous for their body.

The Renaissance was a time of enlightenment and discovery around the world. There were many advancements in culture, art, and science. An interesting area to look at for this period would be the advancements made based on gender. Historically, women do not always have a significant impact on their culture, and they do not always have the same standing as their male counterparts. Margaret L. King and Joan Kelly-Gadol delve deeper into the issue of gender advancements during the Renaissance when they analyze the issue of whether women and men benefitted equally during this period.

was delayed since they couldn’t afford it. Women married young to ensure their heirs around the age of 16 to 20. For women, marriage was the clearest mark for social hood. In many marriages, it involved the women, her parents, kin, and community (Wiesner 72.) According to Joan Kelly, a woman would have a gift, such as money or farm animals, that went to her future husband. On a woman’s wedding day, her father would parade her through her new home. If a woman were an orphan, she could choose her own husband. According to Merry Wiesner, there wasn’t much concern for romantic love. Instead, it was more about economic security, social prestige, and the hope

The main idea of my paper is to propose the homosexuality as an interdisciplinary theorization of Caravaggio’s artwork done in Rome. The purpose of this paper is to not dig deeper into the homosexuality of Caravaggio but to give a different representation and perspective of homosexuality. This paper does not discuss the actual sexuality of Caravaggio, but more so how we perceive norms that can differentiate with connotations to sexuality in Rome during his lifetime. Homosexuality is intertwined with norm a system that concerns sexuality.