"This lady will not hesitate for a moment, but will speak or have someone else speak (preserving her honor and that of her husband) to the one or ones who have committed the misdeed." (547)
This quote immediately made me think of another from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding: "The man is the head [of the family], but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants." Medieval women may have been behind the scenes, but they were the ones pulling the strings, working their way up to the top all demurely! While Pizan's writing is conservative-seeming, underneath all that she is saying is some revolutionary stuff. Yes, we'll all be meek and quiet and gentle, but you know what? We're actually running the show - we're just letting you all think you are. That is AWESOME.
It would be easy to dismiss these texts as something as simple as an "etiquette" or "virtue" guide, but I truly don't think that's all it is. I'm very interested to see what other women from this time period were writing as well.
I thought it was interesting that at the beginning of this text (within the introduction) the authors stated, "Medieval women were eloquent" (540) because at the beginning of the other introductions it never says, "Medieval men were eloquent." The fact that it had to be stated seemed extremely telling to me about women at the time. Although I do not dispute the fact that women had control over husbands potentially at this time (Think of terrifying, Lady MacBeth) yet due to the pacifistic nature of Pizan's writing I am unconvinced that they were always successful, or as virtuous as the author would like to claim. Her piece seemed more like a cry for help coming after a Crusader's history. Rather than "taking up the cross" in the military way, she seems to be calling for a different type of "taking up the cross" that is more in line with how we traditionally view Christianity. Her writing seems to more align with Quintilian in how people in society should be acting, rather than how they actually were.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I gotta agree with Emily Jo here. The fact that half of her essay is talking about why women should not gossip, especially about the lords and ladies, says to me that they're doing this all the time. I mean without TV, books, or inclusion into manly hobbies, what's a girl to do?-knit? I was kind of surprised at the audience she is targeting with her essay though. It seems that the maids and small time baronesses who are doing said gossiping, would not be able to read or get a hold of her work, and I guess it would be the lady of the house's duty to pass out this work to her underlings, sort of like a code of conduct. Maybe it could have been read by someone to them..
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