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Recommended: Sexuality in society
Sexuality has become one of the key influential factors in the human life. Consequently, the reflection upon, as well as the responses to the manifestations of the sexuality, often create fascinating insights into the fundamental aspects of the early-modern and medieval culture. Furthermore, every aspect of the medieval and the modern culture was and is being determined by the sexuality. The treatment of the sexuality solely tries to illuminate the central anxieties, concerns, and problems in both the medieval and modern societies. The study of sexuality and marriage over the years has become an increasingly crucial investigative endeavor. Not only does it unravel the place of gendered constructions but it also provides a privileged vantage …show more content…
The eyes were regarded as active senders, which could be used in sending out the rays of sight. In so doing, the act of looking and observing ones another seemed to stimulate any form of desire in the man or the woman. Consequently, the women were, therefore, being advised to avoid glancing at the men as this could trigger any forms of temptation in them. It was difficult for the married couples to find a private place for intimacy since, in the medieval communities, privacy was a difficult thing to acquire or claim for. The medieval woman’s sexuality encompasses various aspects, not only did the sexuality included sex, but also it covered different parts and aspects of life in the medieval woman. Nevertheless, everything in her eventually led to marriage. However, it was strictly within the wedlock. Moreover, the sexuality scope for the married woman was …show more content…
The devouring womb was regarded as one of the powerful symbols in Christianity in the medieval period, and the men were responsible for controlling the insatiability throughout the marriage life. Additionally, men were restricted with whom and how they could have sex by the religious laws and the proclamations. For example; the couples were restricted not to have sex on Sundays as it was regarded as the Lord’s Day, and on Thursdays and Fridays as people were to prepare for communion. Besides, abstinence was also practiced during Lent, before Christmas and period around the feast of
Marriage and Sexuality Marriage is a ritually recognized union in our society and in some cases a legal contract between spouses. The ultimate definition of marriage defers according to culture but principally it is a universal institution that consists of a bilateral decent system. According to the Webster’s dictionary, sexuality is an organism’s preparedness for engaging in sexual activity in other words, a human’s readiness to begin having sex or exploring sex. The nature of marriage and sexuality has had a solid influence on different cultures round the world even from pre-historic times. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the nature, taboos, requirements and social impact of marriage and sexuality within the Dobe Ju/’hoansi and the
Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991.
The sexual lifestyle of women during the medieval time period was quite different among married and single women. Medieval women were not accurately informed of their sexual organs due to bad medical research. They thought they must perform sexual acts on a regular basis to preserve themselves. The third-century writer Galen was looked upon as an authority for medical information on sexual activities. Galen stated that, “a woman’s womb was ‘cold’ and needed constant warming by ‘hot’ sperm” (Time Traveler’s 55). One would assume that hu...
context out of which a work of literature emerges molds the interpretation of gender in that work.
Medieval and Renaissance literature develops the concepts of love and marriage and records the evolution of the relation between them. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Christian love clashes with courtly love, as men and women grapple with such issues as which partner should rule in marriage, the proper, acceptable role of sex in marriage, and the importance of love as a basis for a successful marriage. Works by earlier writers portray the medieval literary notion of courtly love, the sexual attraction between a chivalric knight and his lady, often the knight's lord's wife. The woman, who generally held mastery in these relationships based on physical desire and consummation, dictated the terms of the knight's duties and obligations, much like a feudal lord over a vassal. This microcosm of romance between man and woman was anchored by the macrocosm of the bonds among men and their fealty to their lord. The dominance of women and fealty to the leader in courtly love contrasts with the dominance ...
In the article “An Anthropological Look at Human Sexuality” the authors, Patrick Gray and Linda Wolfe speak about how societies look at human sexuality. The core concept of anthology is the idea of culture, the systems of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors people acquire as a member of society. The authors give an in depth analysis on how human sexuality is looked at in all different situations.
The first century morality was not unlike our twenty-first century morality. Premarital and extra-marital affairs exist in both. Prostitution is common in both centuries. The speed in which sexual perverseness can occur in today’s society can occur at a much more rapid rate due to the Internet, however, with the same outcome as it was then, the defiling of one’s body, a body that belongs to God. God forgives us as Christians, as King David wa...
These three articles give the modern reader a sense of what sexuality was in Ancient Rome. These articles reinforce that sexuality is important in human societies. They show that how you did or did not do sexual activity was very important and under scrutiny like in Western societies today. Though these articles are using limited resources to make conclusions, they do their best to help the reader make sense of sexual Roman society.
In this conclusion to the "marriage debate" Chaucer makes his case against courtly precept and social custom, as well as against the religious ideas expresses in medieval times. The case he makes establishes his own highly civilised and indeed Epicurean idea of "gentillesse" in general and in particular, in marriage.
Pykett, Lyn. "Gender. Degeneration, Renovation: Some Contexts of the Modern." In Engendering Fiction (London: Arnold, 1995): 14-
Liliequist’s argument as to why bestiality occurred in seventeenth- and eighteenth century Sweden was exceedingly persuasive due to the amount of primary source documents, trial records, and evaluations from other scholars. Liliequist’s argument that the culture in Sweden at the time was prone to bestiality was solid, with environmental, biological, physiological, and historical reasons as to why it occurred in such a manner. Males were not directly trying sin against God or break the law; they were merely curious and had needs that they felt were satisfied through the act of bestiality.
In particular, he examines how the “slow formation in antiquity of a hermeneutics of the self” (pg. 6) set the process for morality being conceived of having a fundamental relationship with human self-formation as an ethical subject (pg. 28). In order to demonstrate his thesis that there is a relationship of transfer of the ideas and practices that posit the individual as an ethical subject of sexual conduct between classical antiquity and Christianity (pg. 32), Foucault presents a number of textual examples from Greek philosophers and medical practitioners from the 4th Century BC (pg. 12). He structures his genealogy through engagement with and discussion of these texts, which he examines using the baseline notion of pleasure. In this historical analysis, he attempts to reveal the authors’ and texts’ attitudes towards sexuality as a domain of
... decades ago. This book is one that will allow the reader to view many aspects of sexuality from a social standpoint, and apply it to certain social attitudes in our society today, these attitudes can range from the acceptance of lesbian and gays, and the common sight of sex before marriage and women equality. The new era of sexuality has taken a definite "transformation" as Giddens puts it, and as a society we are living in the world of change in which we must adapt, by accepting our society as a changing society, and not be naive and think all the rules of sexuality from our parents time our still in existence now.
female sexuality which is suggestive of a ‘sex-negative culture;’ many women were afraid or unaware of their sex and the denial that ‘women possess sexual feelings’ was commonplace in the Victorian period. This resulted in many women never being able to express their sexual desires through fear that this was unnatural, unfeminine and disgraceful. However, the other end of the spectrum shows the reaction to women that did not contain themselves, through the diagnosis of conditions such as ‘nymphomania’ which was the ‘uncontrollable or excessive sexual desire’ of a woman. There seemed no middle ground; either a woman was sexually passive and therefore respected, or she expressed her sexuality and was then cast out of society as a deviant
Many women in this period would engage in “arranged” marriages which were widely accepted and indeed, one of the most practiced forms of marrying at this time. Usually a marriage of convenience rather...