Piety and Practice
How did the people of Latin Christendom actually behave? Their religious claims and propaganda should not mislead us, for these often sprang from the intensity of hatred rather than from real devotion. The same people who could believe with such force could just as forcefully disbelieve. Girls who knelt modestly before the image of Mary on Sundays painted their cheeks on other days of the week, hoping for admirers, and many were so ready to be deceived that the first promise of marriage was enough to excuse a lapse. Virginity had to be guarded by every device: custom, morality, law, religion, the authority of fathers, upbringing and, finally, the notion of family honor. Even so, with all these guardians, it could still be lost through a trick.
For soldiers whose campaigns offered little consolation beyond wine and pleasure, it was hard on returning to the cities to adapt to a new setting and choose the path of restraint. Students became masters in the arts of the senses and cried out that adultery ought to count among forgivable sins and be treated indulgently by enlightened lawmakers. Robert Greene openly confessed that at Cambridge he had "wasted the flower of my youth in the company of idle talkers, to my own dissipation." On stage and in private rooms dancers often performed in a state of undress, and this entertainment is apparently one of the oldest novelties in the world.
Artists, Nobles and the Book Trade
Artists were indifferent to the rules governing relations between the sexes, and the nobles and their ladies approved of the artists' view. Brantome says: "Among the great these rules and scruples about virginity are mocked. How many girls of the upper classes I know who carried their innocence no further than the wedding chamber!" We have already seen how the gracious Marguerite of Navarre listened to bawdy tales without blushing. Small bookshops were full of erotic writing, for which eager buyers paid high prices. Pietro Aretino was as famous in Paris as in Rome. Francois Rabelais, a priest, filled his giant epic Gargantua with coarse talk that might have embarrassed Aretino himself, and he was not at all worried that sales of his book would suffer. Painters found a ready market for sensual scenes, and works of this kind were sold by vagabonds, letter carriers and traveling players, even at fairs. Every kind of sexual deviation found its place in the age, just as they appear among the aristocratic pages of Brantome's books.
Prostitution and Its Regulation
Prostitution flourished both as a source of income and in social standing, and it was in this period that its practitioners acquired the Italian name cortigiane, the feminine of cortigiani, "courtiers." Some commanders hired a number of prostitutes for their troops so that the women of occupied towns would be spared the soldiers' violence. But when venereal diseases spread so widely that they took on the character of a plague, governments one after another passed laws against these unfortunate "daughters of joy." Luther, while holding that the sexual instinct is natural, worked hard to check prostitution, and at his urging many Lutheran cities in Germany banned it strictly. In 1560 Michel de L'Hospital, chancellor of France, put into effect the laws of Louis XI against this social evil.
Romantic Love and Platonic Ideals
Meanwhile the crude pull of body toward body gave way in part to a deeper attraction of soul toward soul, and with it came all the ornaments and refinements of courtship and romance: stolen glances, love letters, sonnets and songs, hopeful gifts and secret meetings. Some sensitive natures, and some women inclined to romance, welcomed "Platonic love," the gift of Italy and of Castiglione. Under this code a lady could live with her admirer as with an intimate, ardent friend and yet preserve her chastity with perfect firmness. But such restraint was not the common currency of the age; men were boldly sensual and women liked them so. The poetry of pure love became fashionable, and even that was often only a prelude to consummation.
Marriage as a Transfer of Property
It was not, however, a prelude to marriage. Parents were still too calculating to leave the choice of a child's spouse to love; to them marriage meant the joining of properties. Erasmus, who was charmed by women's beauty yet not a friend of marriage, advised the young to marry according to the wishes and judgment of their elders and trust that the flower of their love would bloom through constant companionship rather than wilt from satiety; Rabelais agreed with him. Despite such endorsements, a growing number of young people, like Jean d'Albret, rebelled against marriage for money and rank. Roger Ascham, tutor of the princess Elizabeth, complained: "Our age has fallen so far from that old discipline and obedience that now not only young men but even tender girls dare ... to marry whom they please, in defiance of father, mother, God, social order and everything else."
Luther was thrown into a panic by the news that Melanchthon's son had chosen a fiancee without consulting his father, and that a young judge in Wittenberg had declared the engagement lawful; the great reformer believed that publicity would bring disgrace on the city. He wrote of the university (22 January 1544) that there were many young men there from various lands, that the girls were growing bolder by the day, running after the boys to their rooms and lodgings and offering their affection freely, and that many parents had summoned their sons home, fearing that the university meant to put the marriage ring around their necks. He had preached on the subject the previous Sunday, urging men to follow the general practice that had been normal since the world began: parents, with foresight and goodwill, should choose spouses for their children, not children select fiances in advance. Such engagements, he said, were an invention of the hated pope, who, at the devil's prompting, wanted to destroy parental authority, a divine gift and one so strongly confirmed by religion.
Betrothal, Divorce and Adultery
Marriage agreements might be made between the parents of three-year-old boys and girls, though in many cases such contracts were annulled and never carried out. The legal age of marriage was usually fourteen for boys and twelve for girls. Relations after betrothal and before the wedding were tolerated. In Sweden, in Wales and later in some European colonies in America, a custom of "bundling" was allowed even before the betrothal ceremony: the courting pair lay together in bed, bound by custom to keep a sheet between them. In Protestant countries marriage was separated from religious acts, and from 1580 civil marriage began to replace church marriage performed by a priest. Luther, Henry VIII, Erasmus and Pope Clement VII allowed bigamy under special circumstances, above all where it would prevent a divorce. Protestant jurists were gradually preparing to legalize divorce, at first only for adultery. This offense seems to have been very common in France, even though custom there held that an adulterous wife might be killed. Illicit liaisons were part of the ordinary life of upper-class French women.
Households of three, such as the one reported in the lives of Henry II, Catherine de' Medici and Diane de Poitiers, were common: the lawful wife, chosen for her rank, looked away with a forced smile and kept her position, as one still sometimes sees in France today.
Women at Home and in Society
Outside the aristocracy, a woman was a goddess before marriage and a household servant after it. Wives took pride in motherhood, boasted of their many children and tried to keep their families well. They were strong creatures, used to heavy work from morning till night. They sewed most of the family's clothing themselves and sometimes took in work from merchants. The loom was one of the main fixtures of every home, and in England unmarried women spent their whole lives spinning, which gave us the word "spinster."
The women of the French court were of a different stamp, for Francis I encouraged them first of all to display the beauty of their bodies and dress, and even, if they could, to turn the course of national politics by aiming the darts of charm. A movement in support of women reached France from Italy and soon faded, because Frenchwomen knew well that their power and dominance needed no backing from policies or laws. Many upper-class Frenchwomen were literate and well educated, and the "French salon" had already become customary: gatherings in the homes of cultured ladies, where statesmen, poets, painters, scholars, at first priests, and philosophers met and talked. Another group of Frenchwomen, among them Anne de Beaujeu (Anne of France), Anne of Brittany, Claude and Renee, kept their virtue calmly amid the tumult of pleasure-seeking.
In general the Reformation, a Teutonic movement, put woman at the head of the family and finally seated her, as a symbol of beauty and a civilizing force on men, on the throne of the Renaissance world. It also challenged the church's indulgence toward sexual diversions and, after Luther's death, prepared the ground for the rigidity of the Puritans.