City of Ladies Day 2

    Christine addresses marriage and the role women play in it.She asks Lady Rectitude if it really is women who make married life so hard. Is it because of the 'wrong they cause'? Lady Rectitude goes on to talk about all the women who live a life of suffering because of their husbands actions. How many women stayed silent through their suffering. How many men went out drinking while the women was home with a house full of kids. How can these husbands be so miserable in their marriage if they are never there? A marriage takes two people to work and it is not always the woman who is the problem. Men can make married life just as difficult (if not more) than women. She acknowledges that not all marriages are terrible. "Not all marriages are conducted with such spite, for there are those who live together in great peacefulness, love, and loyalty because the partners are virtuous, considerate, and reasonable. And although there are bad husbands, there are also very good ones, truly valiant and wise, and the women who meet them were born in a lucky hour."
    What makes Christine's writing so powerful is the way she asks questions and then has one of the allegorical ladies answer them. She asks if women are the reason for miserable marriages and then Lady Rectitude answers and defends the female sex with examples of women who were very committed to their husbands. They also speak of  the education of women. This is what I found most interesting. Some men don't want their daughters to be educated because they would become immoral. She addresses this with "Here you can clearly see that not all opinions of men are based on reason and that these men are wrong." She then goes into examples of women who were educated. Some men believed that their daughters should be educated. (Christine's father included.) These educated women, daughters of great princes and such, went on to either make decisions in their father's place, teach in their father's place, or persuade others to see their side. It did not ruin these women. Men are afraid that women will become smarter than them. It is more a question of pride and insecurity. When women are educated they compete with men on a level mental playing field. This scared the man's ego.
     Her greatest argument (given the time period) is that even God's scriptures don't speak ill of women."You will find little said against them in the holy legends of Jesus Christ and His Apostles; instead, even in the histories of all the saints, just as you can see yourself, you will find through God's grace many cases of extraordinary firmness and strength in women." There were many cases of great women helping saints in their time of need or taking them in and providing shelter. If God is the final word than how can men say that women are not strong? What I find as a fault in this section is that while they speak of women helping saints they still place women in the "homemaker" lifestyle. Women taking saints into their homes and cooking them dinner.
   In the end of the book Christine addresses the future of women. She doesn't seem to be trying to replace this patriarchal society only defending what women contribute to it. Defending that women are an important part of society and not a lower class citizen compared to men. In order to keep the walls of the city strong, women can't depend on the great women of the past. Women must continue to live a virtuous life and add bricks to the walls of the city. Women are responsible for defending the city. By living a virtuous life and living within these 'standards', women can defend this great city. It is up to the women of the future to mold the way women are perceived and treated. She doesn't limit the power of women to just those born into nobility, she means every one who has a 'noble spirit'. "I could tell of countless ladies of different social backgrounds, maidens, married women, and widows, in whom God manifested His virtues with amazing force and constancy." It is not about your family tree or a birth right, it is about who are inside and how you carry yourself and live your life.

The City of Ladies

        The tone Christine uses reflects her uncertainty and disbelief of the status of women. An example of this is when she says, "Og. God, how can this be? For unless I stray from my faith, I must never doubt that Your infinite wisdom and most perfect goodness ever created anything which was not good. Did You yourself not create woman in a very special way and since that time did You not give her all those inclinations which it pleased You for her to have? And how could it be that you could go wrong with anything? Yet look at all these accusations which have been judged, decided, and concluded against women." Her tone shows that all of these things she has heard men say will be challenged throughout the rest of her text. She says, "I considered myself most unfortunate because God had made me inhabit a female body in this world...I finally decided that God formed a vile creature when He made woman, and I wondered how such a worthy artisan could have deigned to make sure an abominable work." Her tone seems almost sarcastic. Nothing but negative things have been said about the status of women, how sad that she is a woman. "Sadness welled up in my heart, for I detested myself and the entire feminine sex, as though we were monstrosities in nature." She talks about how men badmouth women but "it seems that they all speak from one and the same mouth." They all repeat themselves. They all sound the same. These "famous and notable men" couldn't all be wrong, could they? She goes on to say that even after seriously thinking about this she could not see these terrible qualities in women. But how could all of these men be completely wrong? She is criticizing society's view of women and questioning the integrity of these "famous and notable men". Her gullibility shows in that she seems to almost accept what others have said. The way she speaks seems to make her appear to be less intelligent than she actually is. By wording her statements in the introduction and her questions to the three ladies in this way, the point she is trying to make seems more dynamic. For example, instead of saying that to build a city takes great strength she asks the three ladies, "where would I find enough physical strength in my weak feminine body to realize such an enormous task?" While the beginning of this text seems to state terrible after terrible ideas of women, the female sex is defended when three women representing Reason, Rectitude, and Justice appear to Christine. They tell her to build a city and populate it with great women, to defend against these accusations being made by men. They first woman says, "for you know that any evil spoken of women so generally only hurts those who say it, not women themselves."