The Complex Role Of Sex Education In Medieval Christianity

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.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages and into the duration of the Renaissance, the Medieval Church’s social and political power dwindled. Centuries prior the Catholic Church gained a surplus of control, largely due to the stability it maintained during the chaotic breakdown of the Western Roman Empire . Yet toward the end of the Middle Ages the Church set in motion factors that would ultimately lead to its downfall as the definitive figure of authority. However, despite political and social controversy surrounding the church, the institutions it established cleared a path for a new way of thinking, shaping society in an enduring way.

Religion had an enormous impact on almost all aspects of life in the medieval world. In the Christian belief, the first two people that were created by God were Adam and Eve. They were provided with a paradise to live in,the garden of Eden, and were only given one rule that they had to follow to not eat from the tree of good and evil. If they did eat fruit from the tree, then they would have to leave the paradise. Eve was tempted by Satan, and ate the fruit. She then gave some of that fruit to Adam, and they were banned from the garden. For this reason, women were seen as dangerous temptresses. This story showed that women were morally weaker, and were likely to lead their spouses into sin. They became known as the “weaker” sex, for it was a woman who first consumed the fruit in the Garden of Eden.

Ryken, the Catholics’ viewed the act of sex was only to be had in the scanted of

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:

Eventually Augustine is able to overcome his trial of his inability to accept Christianity. One of the main things he was still struggling with was maintaining good moral standards. Augustine struggled with celibacy and knew

Sex for pleasure, such as pregnant woman, was also regarded as a sin at the transition from the 16th to the 17th century. Faith in the harmfulness of sexual acts had deeply internalized human beings. Driven by the fear of attracting the wrath of God, they dragged thousands of women and men into the church court until the eighteenth century. Despite the draconian punishments on the other side and those feared in the hereafter, adultery, fornication and prostitution were frequent.

The Middle Ages were a time of expanding and experimenting sexually for the people. Religious figures who had taken vows of celibacy had children, sometimes with more than one woman. Even some popes of the time had illicit affairs. However,

of the church taught that sexual relations should be avoided if possible and indulged in

In this paper I will write about Augustine and his thoughts and ideas on sin in the Confessions, where sin originates and whether or not I believe that Augustine’s conception of sin has a place in modern society. From all of this I will conclude that through Augustine's work and findings, Augustine’s conception of the human person and their human actions are somewhat relevant today, due to the fact Augustine set a standard for what human nature is, known as the ability to desire, think and do, yet, people see the human differently today than Augustine did. At the same time his ideas of original sin and how the evil nature of humans is associated with original sin are still very relevant today.

While I didn’t attend Catholic school, I kind of understand the reasons why they try to avoid any type of discussions that are sex related. In the past, sex has always been a taboo topic both in the public and in school. Teachers were unsure of whether it’s the appropriate subject to talk in front of their students and it’s somewhat due to the mentality that sex is something private and holy that we shouldn’t share with others. Besides, there was also a lot of pressure from parents to prevent explicit sex education. Most parents were afraid of explicit sex-education curriculum that will teach their child about masturbation, homosexual, oral sex, to question their gender identity and question about diverse structure family. This is why abstinence-only

Religion in the Middle Ages takes on a character all of its own as it is lived out differently in the lives of medieval men and women spanning from ordinary laity to vehement devotees. Though it is difficult to identify what the average faith consists of in the Middle Ages, the life told of a radical devotee in The Book of Margery Kempe provides insight to the highly intense version of medieval paths of approaching Christ. Another medieval religious text, The Cloud of Unknowing, provides a record of approaching the same Christ. I will explore the consistencies and inconsistencies of both ways to approach Christ and religious fulfillment during the Middle Ages combined with the motivations to do so on the basis of both texts.

After St. Paul, one of the most prominent Christian early church leaders who had an impact on the way Christians view sex

The morality about sex had a main aim: An ideal of purity based on a chastity code which emphasized the relevance of premarital continence. In order to keep this chastity code, anything related to sex was silenced in an attitude of deliberated ignorance, an attitude of rejection of sex, especially in women, who usually associated sex with a marital duty.

In the old days, regarding sex education, parents had different reasons as to why they wanted to avoid talking to their children about sex education. Reasons being, some parents did not want to corrupt the minds of their children. They did not want their child to be open-minded into the varieties of sexual intercourse of experiencing this act with their friends or random people at school or any other places. They think it 's just not the right time, their kids are not ready, or they are too young to learn about sex. They tend to hide the term “sex” in front of their kids because of that particular reason and some parents may