Widows were encouraged to take vows of chastity, and although many did remarry, second marriages were held by some to be lustful. From Radegunda, a queen in sixth-century Gaul (modern France), to Margery Kempe, a fifteenth-century townswoman in England, devout individuals occasionally persuaded their spouses to let them live chastely and to pursue religious lives. The church therefore prohibited anything that interfered with conception, including both non-procreative sex acts and contraceptive measures, either in or outside of marriage.Įven for those who did marry, chastity was still desirable. Even within marriage, however, sex acts that could not lead to children were viewed as suspect. The church required both partners, once married, to "pay the marriage debt," or to willingly engage in sexual activity with their spouse in order to meet the spouse's sexual needs and prevent adultery. Numerous theologians recognized that marriage provided an appropriate Christian lifestyle for those not capable of sexual abstinence. ![]() Nonetheless, the early church fathers believed that marriage itself was not evil. Augustine (354–430) wrestled with his own desire-at one point famously asking God to give him chastity but not yet-before finally giving up sex entirely to devote himself to religion. Important early church fathers, highly influential throughout the Middle Ages, tended to see women as a direct challenge to a life of chastity and hence to the most pious existence. All people, however, had souls that were equal in the eyes of the Lord and in the church and could achieve sanctity, although medieval theologians believed that each gender faced different challenges. Both men and women had to be wary of falling into Eve's evilness, while Mary's goodness was a model but not actually achievable. Mary, by contrast, had helped to offer mankind salvation by obeying God and mothering the Christ child while preserving her chastity. Eve, they said, caused the exile from the Garden of Eden through her foolishness and disobedience. Medieval theologians provided two dichotomous examples of women's behavior from the Christian Bible: Eve and Mary. ![]() ![]() Christianity therefore played a significant role in influencing western European attitudes toward sex and gender throughout the Middle Ages. Western Europe in the Middle Ages was heavily Roman Christian even the small number of non-Roman Christians, such as Jews, heretics, and the Greek Christian and Muslim peoples who dwelled along the eastern and Mediterranean edges of western Europe, lived in a culture dominated by Roman Christianity. While regional and status-based differences remained, western Europe developed a common culture and ideology, which strongly shaped ideas about sex and gender. Despite these differences, Europe was increasingly united by a common religion-Roman Christianity-and by the common legal system and institutional infrastructure of that religion. All of these values evolved over the Middle Ages, as societies developed and came into contact with one another. ![]() Behavioral codes and ideals differed with religion, culture, and geography. Men and women were regarded as essentially different, with different roles and rights, although why this was and what it meant in practice varied widely. Attitudes toward sex and gender in western Europe during the Middle Ages (between approximately 5) were diverse and often contradictory.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |