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

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).

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.

Allison Glazebrook and Kelly Olson’s chapter, “Greek and Roman Marriage" the authors discuss marriage practices in Ancient Greece and Rome and highlight the importance of wives in a family structure and society. They do so by looking at what was required for a legitimate marriage over the course of these civilizations’ history. In both cultures, Glazebrook and Olson especially look at how women and girls’ bodies were policed and defined. From an early age, girls were taught that their role in life would be remain sexually available to their husbands and produce heirs. From a modern perspective, girls in ancient civilizations married extremely young. However, this chapter address the “scientific” justification society gave to promote this practice

In the second chapter of her book, Studying Gender in Classical Antiquity, Lin Foxhall looks at similarities and difference in Ancient Greek and Roman households. She specifically wants to address how households relate to gender and sexuality in these cultures. With each civilization, she starts out by looking at the etymology of the words used for “household” and “family” and how these reflect the cultures view on the two based on word meanings. Foxhall then goes into the building blocks of a household in both cultures: the key relationships of husband-wife, master-slave, and parent-child and how the hierarchy of relationships was viewed in each society. She discusses marriage practices and traditions in each society and the cultures reaction

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:

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.

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

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

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

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 the first article The Wife is the solitary sacred female among the large middle area of English society. The Wife of Bath article has many arguments, sources, and citations on how women had power in the fourteenth century. This article opposes to the radical and aristocratic model, which in terms of property inheritance. The text also tests that woman are a separate property or category which gains its status simply from sex and marriage. She divided some of her report on men and virginity, also she explains her first three husbands and descriptions of her fourth and fifth marriages. The wife revels the primary interconnections between the control of textual clarification, the control of rights of land, and property, and control of someone’s body. These interconnections not only incorporate, but

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.