The single self: feminist thought and the marriage market in early modern Venice

Renaissance Quarterly, Autumn, 1995 by Virginia Cox

This reading of book 2 finds support in an extraordinary passage toward the end of the book that marks perhaps more clearly than any other the distance that separates the perspective on the question of women's equality in Il merito delle donne from that of the previous tradition of "defenses of women." The "official" theme of the second day's discussions--pursued in a semi-serious way--has been the question of whether and by what means men could be persuaded to abandon their misogynist views. At the end, one of the speakers, Cornelia, in a moment of frustration dismisses this whole line of inquiry by pointing out that there is no use in women's attempting to win their enemies round. The only way in which women could achieve a genuine equality with men, she suggests, would be by freeing themselves from economic dependence and learning to fend for themselves. "Surely it would possible for us just to banish these men from our lives and escape their carping and jeering once and for all? Could we not live without them? Could we not earn our own living and manage our affairs without help from them? Come, let us rouse ourselves and claim back our freedom and the honor and dignity they have usurped from us for so long. Do you think that if we put our minds to it, we would be lacking the courage to defend ourselves, the strength to fend for ourselves, or the talents to earn our own living?"(31)

While it would be rash to place too much significance on an isolated outburst in the dialogue, it is important to recognize the novelty Cornelia's proposal represents. As I have stressed, an unstated assumption of the tradition of "defenses of women" prior to Il merito delle donne is that what is at stake for women is no more than a recognition on men's part of the dignity of their sex. In the words of one participant in the debate who brings this assumption into the open, women have no desire to escape from the unjust tyranny under which they must live ("uscir fuori della ingiusta tirannide in che vivono.")(32) They are content to remain in their subservient position ("all vivere soggette"). What is intolerable is that men fail to pay due respect to the "dignity" and "honor" of their sex.(33)

What is striking in the passage quoted above from Il merito delle donne is that Fonte's Cornelia does not stop at demanding the restitution of women's onor and dignita, but proposes instead a full-scale recuperation of their liberta. A world is envisaged in which women might enjoy a concrete and substantive parity, where their qualities and strengths would be not simply acknowledged but exercised. This utopian possibility is only sporadically glimpsed, both here and in Marinella's Nobilta et eccellenza; there is nothing here approaching a coherent manifesto for social reform. But this is scarcely surprising given the circumstances within which these women were writing. What is more surprising--and what needs to be stressed in view of its absence from the previous tradition--is that this possibility of effective equality is envisaged at all. This aspect of their writing gives Marinella and Fonte some claim to be viewed less as exponents of the feminist thought of the century that was ending as they wrote than as precursors of developments in the century to come.(34)