# Introduction Women's history should challenge accepted periodization. Looking at women's emancipation, events that further the liberation of men, such as The Renaissance, often had opposite effects on women. During the Italian Renaissance, women as a class experienced a contraction of social and personal options. The following criteria were most useful for gauging relative powers of men and women: 1) the regulation of female sexuality, 2) women's economic and political roles, 3) the cultural roles of women, 4) ideology about women, particularly the sex-role system displayed in art and ideas. This essay examines changes in sex-role conception, particularly with respect to sexuality. Renaissance ideas about sex-role conceptions vary, especially by social class, but overall, 1) female chastity was normed and 2) the domestic/public realm of women/men was seen as inferior/superior. # Love and the Medieval Lady Medieval courtly love allowed aristocratic women to express sexual love outside marriage. It mirrored the feudal system of vassalage, where the knight served his lady similar to how he served his lord. In order to define itself as a noble phenomenon, it attributed an essential freedom between lovers (love voluntarily given and reciprocated), distinguishing it from the patriarchal and coercive institution of marriage. Notably, peasant women were excluded from this whole phenomenon. >Mutuality, or complementarity, marks the relation the lady entered into with her ami (the favored name for "lover" and, significantly, a synonym for "vassal"). (p. 179) While courtly love made room for extramarital relationships, it also maintained restraint and idealization of sexual passion. Courtly love's passion was nourished by Christianity's exaltation of love. Courtly love combined spiritual devotion with sexual desire. Courtly love did not threaten the broader feudal social order. In fact, it reinforced the power dynamics of aristocratic families by keeping passionate love separate from political marriage. In medieval feudal society, to further one's power, the main priority was maintaining and securing property, especially land. Women could inherit and administer property, granting them a certain power and ability to navigate society. The legitimacy of children was less of a concern compared to later times because power had not yet been fully centralized in monarchies which require a clear line of succession. This meant that illegitimate children could be, and were, used to benefit the family estate. This meant that women could, and did, have affairs which were tolerated. What mattered was securing land for the family. Courtly love ideologically liberated aristocratic women by granting them emotional and sexual autonomy, granting lovers (peers rather than masters) and justifying adultery within a framework that upheld the feudal and Christian systems. As expected, women responded to this power and actively shaped ideas and values that corresponded to their interests. Women participated in creating the literature of courtly love. Additionally, aristocratic women were patrons of the arts, especially poets of courtly love. This power to shape ideals of romantic love stemmed from their political power granted by landownership. >Courtly love, which flourished outside the institution of patriarchal marriage, owed its possibility as well as its model to the dominant political institution of feudal Europe that permitted actual vassal homage to be paid to women. (p. 6) # The Renaissance Lady: Politics and Culture By the 14th century, Italy's political structures changed, **shifting from feudal society to sovereign city-states** ruled by despots (e.g., the Medici in Florence). Court society experienced a transformation. In particular, noblewomen's roles were diminished, as power concentrated in the hands of male rulers. Without the jurisdictional autonomy that feudalism provided to nobility, **women could no longer exert the same level of political power**. Women's roles shifted toward being **patrons of the arts and mere ornaments of court life**, primarily serving their husband's prestige. Humanist education was important for both boys and girls in noble families. However, the **humanist education was male-centered and led**, shifting away from romance and chivalry, which had been more responsive to women’s interests. # The Renaissance of Chastity Renaissance love **transitioned from courtly love's mutual and physical attraction to a more spiritual or intellectual admiration**. As society shifted from the **feudal system to urban bourgeois values**, the literature of love also changed, focusing on a form of love that was largely asexual. Renaissance **humanism initially focused on public and civic life**, downplaying the central role of love in human experience. The ideal woman became confined to the domestic sphere, with an emphasis on **chastity and motherhood**. **Castiglione’s** **_The Courtier_** adapted reinforced love’s connection to marriage and family roles. He fused aristocratic courtesy with new patriarchal norms, emphasizing that women should only love those they could marry and remain chaste outside of marriage. Castiglione’s portrayal of love mirrors the loss of independence and the redefinition of nobility during the Renaissance. A **courtier** is a noble or aristocrat who serves in the court of a monarch or ruler, often in a position of political, social, or cultural influence. Courtiers are typically well-educated, skilled in diplomacy, and adept at navigating the social dynamics of the court. They are expected to exhibit **grace, charm, and nonchalance** while attending to the desires and commands of their ruler. However, beneath this outward elegance, **courtiers often practice subtle manipulation** to maintain favor with the monarch or gain power. Noblewomen, once participants in public and cultural life, were now **constrained by political marriages and expected to serve both their husbands and the prince**. This double dependency reflects their declining power in Renaissance society. Castiglione acknowledges the **double standard** in love, where men are allowed sexual freedom, but women are confined to chaste, procreative roles. Just as the courtier serves the prince while concealing his true independence, the noblewoman is expected to serve the courtier without genuine love or agency. >In sum, a new division between personal and public life made itself felt as the state came to organize Renaissance society, and with that division the modern relation of the sexes made its appearance, even among the Renaissance nobility. (p. 12) >Renaissance ideas on love and manners, more classical than medieval, and almost exclusively a male product, expressed this new subordination of women to the interests of husbands and male-dominated kin groups and served to justify the removal of women from an "unladylike" position of power and erotic independence. All the advances of Renaissance Italy, its protocapitalist economy, its states, and its humanistic culture, worked to mold the noblewoman into an aesthetic object: decorous, chaste, and doubly dependent-on her husband as well as the prince. (p. 12)