Sexuality in the Renaissance - 2020 Words

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 â€Å"Renaissance woman† should be. Sexuality is defined as one’s sexual character which possesses the structural and functional traits of sex. In the Renaissance, this definition was accompanied with ideologies of gender. This incorporated knowledge led to their notions of the female being inferior to the male based on what was†¦show more content†¦A young woman would marry a man who was usually significantly older than she was. After marriage, women were stuck in a home where the male was the head of the household and made all of the decisions.11 Marital choice did not exist; at least not for women. Woman were forced to marry men that they barely knew, thus even the most intimate details of their lives were decided not by them, but by others. Love was usually not a factor in the marriage equation. Wife-beating was also allowed and men sometimes imprisoned, starved, and humiliated their wives.12 Divorce did not come about until the Protestant Reformation and even then, it was mostly used by upper class citizens. â€Å"Fornication, clandestine marriage, and adultery were sexual offenses related to marriage.† Adultery was seen as a â€Å"wife’s crime† and was very serious. On the other hand, men did the same thing but were not punished for it. These men even had children outside of their marriage and the wife was expected to take care of them just the same. This happened mostly with high status families, but in poorer families men resulted to bigamy of desertion. Either way, the woman was put in an unfair position that she had to deal with.13 Motherhood was an expected part of the wife’s life. Woman would have a large number of babies right after each other although some babies would not survive. â€Å"High mortality rates must have overshadowed the experience of motherhood in ways difficult toShow MoreRelatedGuido Ruggieros the Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice1551 Words   |  7 Pageseverywhere from TV, to movies, to the internet. One might think that in the early centuries, such disregard for the privacy and dignity of the sexual act never existed. But as we can see in Ruggieros The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, historical facts beg to differ. By using criminal records, he takes us into a world that, although it is many centuries long ago, is much like todays society in their way of committing sexual crimes and sexual behavior. In my opinionRead MoreFemale Humanists in Renaissance Italy Essay1355 Words   |  6 PagesFemale Humanists in Ren aissance Italy Arcangela Tarabotti like many young girls in Renaissance Italy had parents who could not afford a sufficient dowry to purchase their daughter a good marriage. In order to protect their honor and her virginity they sent Tarabotti away to a convent against her will. Here she lived out the rest of her unhappy life as a nun. What sets her apart from other girls of similar circumstance is that she became one of the few female humanist writers#. The story of TarabottiRead MoreSexuality And Modernity : Bruce Nugent s Modernist Aesthetic827 Words   |  4 PagesSexuality and Modernity: Bruce Nugent’s Modernist Aesthetic Within the purview of new scholarship conducted on the expression of black queer sexuality during the Harlem Renaissance, scholars are quick to acknowledge the longstanding critical reticence to address such expression. Only relatively recently have scholars been willing to analyze queerness not just as negligible intimation of sexual otherness, but as a significant thematic pulse that shaped and fashioned the Renaissance into the dynamicRead MoreThe Rise Of The Italian Renaissance1287 Words   |  6 PagesThe Italian Renaissance, in contrast to the conservative attitude of the Middle Ages, introduced a society dominated by a secular, humanistic spirit. One of the most historically significant events of the Renaissance was the Reformation. 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Both Goffen and Pardo view many of Titian’s paintings of women to be erotic or sensualRead MoreMy Last Duchess by Robert Browning693 Words   |  3 PagesThis demonstrates the vanity of the Duke, as he would not want to be perceived as a lesser man than he is now. Even though is unhappy with his late wife’s actions, he is refusing to correct his wife with fixing her sexuality which was often seen during the Italian Renaissance. The Renaissance was a time when men exercised absolute power. They also strongly believed that anybody lower than them would be inferior, which would include women even if the had the same title. Browning uses ambiguity to showRead MoreGender Stereotypes : Macbeth And The Wife Of Bath1515 Words   |  7 Pagesthroughout the medieval ages and the Renaissance. While many authors portrayed women as a weak stereotypical female, some authors such as William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer challenged this by describing the female characters as strong and ambitious characters. Not only challenging the sexual stereotypes that existed in both time periods, Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare also enabled the female characters both in Macbeth and The Wife of Bath exploit their sexuality to obtain the balance of powerRead MorePassing by Nella Larsen1292 Words   |  6 PagesNella Larsen brings up in her story, Passing, is the aspect of lesbianism. Before the Harlem Renaissance began, people back then were not very open about being a gay or lesbian person. As the years progressed, people became more open about their sexuality if they happened to be different. The Harlem Renaissan ce was a time period that is known for the blossoming culture of African Americans. The Harlem Renaissance took place in the vicinity of Harlem, New York. This event was a cultural movement for theRead MoreGender Advancements During The Renaissance Essay1418 Words   |  6 Pages 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 theyRead MoreThe Way Of The Ways1687 Words   |  7 Pagesstory with a look all the way back to so-called â€Å"primitive† art—which often reflected an interest in human sexuality, if only based on con cerns about fertility—it may be more appropriate to begin with a culture whose traditions have been clearly identified as having found their way into the ancient Roman psyche. That is, the culture of ancient Egypt. An example of this interest in human sexuality, and an expression of it in art, is Min, the Egyptian â€Å"god of male fertility.† â€Å"Representing masculine